It may get 14 hours, but will still be a very big device.
If you want slim and small ARM is a way better solution than Intel.

... 2002 called and wants its state of Linux 3D drivers back

well, looks like ARM suddenly lost MY interest. (most) Intel netbooks have open video, I am not about to buy one that does not.

Especially if the Atom N450-based netbooks really can get up to 14 hours of battery as they claim. I'm not sure if that's true or just advertising figures, but I might have to get me an Asus 1005PE (nice and Linux compatible) to find out.

"well, looks like ARM suddenly lost MY interest. (most) Intel netbooks have open video, I am not about to buy one that does not.

Where are all those ARM Netbook and Tablet?

Is it going to be the year of ARM? I read about ARM since early last year and I'm still waiting. At this rate, Apple iPad will be the first ARM based (Apple A4) tablet to be sold.

Enough with the talk, show me some real working hardware that we can buy now!

The ARM SoC I'm working on (by Samsung) has open specs for all components, incl. 3D acceleration.

You do know they bundle Starter with those right? It's a constrained os designed for a constrained environment... trouble is, it forces you to remain constrained. If I got one of these I wouldn't even boot the starter os. Even if I needed Windows, which I don't, I wouldn't boot starter for a second.

meego is currently gnome mobile plus QT for app development.

Well I already said I wouldn't be loading Windows on it.

Even so however, though this probably depends on your country of residence (not sure how this works out in New Zealand) an OEM disk of Home premium is cheaper than anytime upgrade at Microsoft's prices in the US. This assumes, of course, that you aren't buying the OEM disk from Microsoft or at a retail outlet. In either case, to me it's irrelevant and I'm disinclined to pay extra to Microsoft just so I can make use of another gig of ram I'd put into the thing.

meego is currently gnome mobile plus QT for app development.

"meego is currently gnome mobile plus QT for app development.

On a netbook? So what windows software you really need on a netbook?

why Ubuntu developed their netbook interface that required 3D to begin with. If the EFL libraries offer the same features and are much faster even in 2D, why on earth would Ubuntu use something dependent on 3D drivers?

OEMs are hesitant to sell netbooks without Windows. Even though netbooks are supposed to be for surfing the web the typical consumer sees a keyboard and expects Windows.

BIG PROBLEM: ALL of the ARM 3D solutions need proprietary drivers ..

... 2002 called and wants its state of Linux 3D drivers back

You know, even though Dell claims that 33% figure, they make it damn hard to find a Linux netbook on their web site and that's here in the US. In some countries they don't offer it at all. So, I'd take Dell's statement with a liberal dose of salt if I were you.

Nearly one-third of the 35 million netbooks on track to ship this year will come with some variant of the free, open-source operating system, ABI Research said. The exact split is 32% Linux versus 68% Windows, said Jeff Orr, an analyst at ABI, which works out to about 11 million Linux netbooks this year.

As netbooks running the ARM processor become a major factor, Orr predicted Linux will overtake Windows on netbooks by 2013. That will be driven by consumers in less-developed countries buying Linux netbooks as their primary PCs, rather than North American consumers buying netbooks as secondary machines as predominates today.