If you were waiting on buying a netbook because they keep putting out new ones with slightly tweaked specs, now might be a good time to buy. Acer and Asus, the two big netbook and ultraportable PC makers, are taking a breather as they evaluate new hardware options and try to sell all the netbooks stacked up in warehouses throughout the country.
The new Atom N550 dual-core netbooks should be showing up in August, so you’ve got a good month during which to relax, compare specs, and pick a color that matches your new drapes.
What do we recommend? To be honest, the most important thing for all these netbooks isn’t really the specs; they’re all very similar hardware-wise. Instead, your major choice is between SSD and HDD, and between form factors and finishes. Go to your local electronics store and see what they’ve got — feel the weight difference between this one and that one, and see whether you can deal with a slightly petite keyboard. Personally, I’d go with SSD, 2GB of RAM, Windows XP, and a 6-cell battery.