I’m tired of lugging my MacBook Pro to the office and to coffee shops, because in those places I am likely just writing, researching and blogging with it, so I don’t need all the processing power, the huge storage space or the DVD burner, and I definitely don’t want the size and weight of the MBP.  I prefer not to travel with it either, for the reasons above as well as the risk of lost, theft and damage.  As much as I am a Mac loyalist, until they reincarnate the Newton, my ultralight will need to be on a different platform, which means getting a PC.

Considerations:

• weight:  2 pounds is ideal.
• footprint: smaller = easier to transport and I think 9″ feels ideal after trying the 7″ (TWSS?)
• keyboard: larger is better because I don’t have huge hands, but they aren’t petite
• drive: solid state rather than hard drive, because it’s lighter, uses less power, starts faster and is harder to break
• memory card slot: who cares how big the hard drive is if I can swap out memory cards
• battery life: longer life means not needing to carry the power adapter on day trips
• cost: under $300 is ideal
• operating system: I lean toward Windows over Linux for it’s familiarity and compatibility, but hate myself for it

Rye told me that as long as he has been watching, the top three, in order are:
1. Acer Aspire One 2. Dell Mini-Note 3. Asus Eee PC
Joan also said Asus and HP, and has heard great things about the Lenovo IdeaPad S10.  Lenovo and Dell Priced themselves out, since I couldn’t find anything less than $400 and really do want this to be on the cheap.

The least expensive seems to be the Asus 7″ with 512 MB RAM, a 4GB drive and Linux for $257.20 at Amazon and the 9″, which still only weighs 2# is on sale at Best Buy for only $280.  I think I’ve narrowed it to 2 different 9″ Asus models, bold-faced in the chart below.

Thanks to Jepoy for this article which may make it possible for me to run Mac OS X on a netbook after all, and thanks to Neil and Christopher for answering my ignorant questions.