1. Question- detailed at end: Is there any inobvious reason why a netbook seems a bad choice for this task. Is there a better newer brighter solution that IO've missed? 2. People may not be aware of this nicely specd recent netbook offering. ___________ When travelling I usually lug a standard size laptop - in a daypack on occasion. Doable but annoying. We've decided to "invest" [tm] in a 'netbook' for our coming trip. I've done all the standard reading and comparing. Reduced size and weight and reasonably OK battery life seem to make this a travellers dream, comparatively. A light-weight portable solar panel of a few Watts capacity MAY be part of trip complement depending on overall final packed weight and volume. Prices here don't seem too much worse than Asia and buying here allows pretrip setup and local extended warranty. Choices seemed to be variants of HP/Acer/Asus in around the 10" screen size in each case. I've probably decided on the reasonably new and well specd HP 5101 with Atom N280 1.66GHz, 1366 x 768 10.1" display, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD, WiFi, Bluetooth and Win XP Pro with Vista Business downgrade optional. Including a 3 year pickup and return HP warranty the prices is about $US700, which seems a bargain for such a well specifiEd machine, when compared with specs and cost say a year ago. HP keyboard is generally felt to be as good as any in this class, this model has a real DB15 VGA port (unlike some earlier HPs). 4 cell battery is a shame compared to 6 cell of some competitors. NO internal DVD and external USB DVD probably won't be added as premium pricing of small USB powered units seems unjustified. 1.3kg. 23.2 (at front) x 262 x 180 mm Microsoft have poleaxed the display resolution on all netbooks with XP home by requiring they be no more than 1024 x 600 to gain license rights to the low cost XP home variant. XP Pro versions don't have this limitation and the extra height makes a large difference on some pages. The major tasks are 1. the assimilation, retention and possible display of photos along the way with external HDD as backup) plus 2. WiFi / LAN internet access where appropriate. I haven't tested CF card download speeds yet but expect they may be slow by laptop speeds but not absolutely terrible. I may be wrong. Post trip use liable to be more of the same. QUESTIONs: This SEEMS like an excellent version of this class of machine to me. What have I missed? Am I going to regret this? Why should I not instead buy eg an HP 12.1" 'proper' noteboook with substantially more size, more weight more processing speed, more cost and a DVD writer? Any fatal flaws (apart from lack of internal DVD).. Russell -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist