A Netbook as an eBook Reader?

My cousin and her husband were visiting my parents for Thanksgiving and my cousin brought her Eee PC along. As usual, I found myself quite enamored by the little device. On Friday, I went in to Panera in my hometown to do some writing for school, and I saw a man reading his Amazon Kindle. I asked him about it and he beamed when describing how much he loved it -- essentially the same reaction I've gotten from nearly everyone I've spoken to who owns one. I would love to get a Kindle myself, but think I will continue to wait for version 2.0. (Particularly seeing how Amazon is sold out until February.) Seeing the man with his Kindle in Panera after playing with my cousin's netbook started me thinking -- why not use a netbook as an eBook reader? (Apparently, I'm not the first one to have this idea.)

As I've written before, one of the biggest hang-ups I have with the current crop of eBook readers is that they don't do a good job allowing you to simply copy PDF files on to them to read. Amazon has a conversion process and Sony can read some PDF files, but I read a ton of academic articles and other PDF content that tends to be fairly graphic intensive. Most eBook readers do a very poor job rendering these kinds of files, but netbooks would be able to handle these with no problem. I've been a little wary of the original batch of netbooks as they only had ~ 2-3 hours of battery life, but new ones are coming out that get up to 6+ hours of juice . That would make for a great all-day reading companion.

I'm particularly drawn to the Asus 901, one of the smallest netbooks, for several reasons:

• This would definitely be a secondary computer for me and not my primary one. As such, I think the trade-off for smaller size would be worth the limitation of the smaller keyboard. I'd still use my ThinkPad for any major work I'd do.
  
• The tiny size would make it a fantastic travel companion for flying with only carry-on luggage.
  
• Flash memory, while limited in capacity (12 GB), would mean this has no moving parts -- making it far more durable (great for travel), boot faster, and put out less noise than a similar computer with a hard drive. I could compliment the storage with a USB drive and/or SD cards if need be.
  
• It has among the best battery life (up to 8 hours) of any Netbook I've seen reviewed.
• One of the primary purposes I'd have for getting something like this would be to experiment with using it as an eBook reader. The smallest possible size and weight would be ideal for this. So would the lack of moving parts. The Asus 901 also appears to have the best viewing angle of comparable netbooks -- a feature that would be critical for reading.
  

The other huge selling point with me about the Asus 901 is that it also has a multi-touch trackpad -- similar to the new MacBooks:



CNET has another video review here.

I may have to seriously consider one of these -- possibly after the beginning of the year. Now if only they'd come out with a tablet version of one of these and I'd be set!

See reviews of the Eee 901 here, here, here, here, and here. You can currently buy the 12 GB XP version on Amazon for $349 and the 20 GB Linux version for $436. (What amazes me is that the XP version is currently cheaper than the Amazon Kindle which sells for $359.)

If you're looking for something a little larger, the Samsung NC10 also looks like a good system. it has a 10.2-inch screen, comprable battery life, and a larger keyboard. It sells on Amazon for $488.