Torn

Much though I wish the Psion crowd well, I have to admit that any kind of ban is a bit overkill; heavy-handedness doesn't make anyone friends.

That said, I have two problems with the name "netbook".

1) Yes, it referred to a Psion product. Seriously, how hard could it have been to find a name that didn't already belong to something? It's only marketing fluff anyway - "budget subnotebook" would have covered it. IT has far too much of names being reused, and it's hopelessly confusing at the best of times; this particular case is reasonably clear at the moment, but in five years' time there are going to be confused people on eBay.

2) People can't even decide what "netbook" means anyway. Sony's new subnotebook gets bashed for being an "expensive netbook". Fujitsu expand a long line of subnotebooks and get accused of producing a netbook. Someone brings out a cheap laptop with a 13" screen and it gets called a "big netbook". If we're going to use the term, at least use it right.

Of course, it's not particularly meaningful anyway. A device dedicated to web surfing would be something more like the Nokia n770 and successors. An EeePC is certainly no better (and mostly worse) at web surfing than the average laptop, cheap and small or otherwise. My "netbook" gets used for programming and photo editing, rarely for web surfing. What netbooks have done is replace the eBay market for old/slow subnotebooks - that's a good thing, but it doesn't need a marketing-fluff name.