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I have an Asus 1000HE. I replaced an aging full-sized Toshiba laptop. I specifically went for the Asus 1000HE for several reasons. First was the long battery life. Acer sells a similar unit with similar specs, but its battery sticks out like an ugly growth. The 1000HE battery is more streamlined.
The "chicklet" flat keys are actually a good compromise between closer spacing and typeability (I'm a touch typist and am picky about keyboards). I wouldn't have the earlier Asus netbooks, because they screwed up and moved the right shift key too far right.
Although not as large as a full-sized laptop, the screen is perfectly adequate for most uses (web surfing, word processing, etc). Using FBReader, it makes a fine ebook reader, although not as portable as I could wish.
The final point that makes netbooks so popular is the price. You get a lot of hardware for $400 or less. You can't touch a new laptop for that.
One last point. If you intend to use a netbook mainly for reading, you may want to consider one of the smaller netbooks with a 7 inch screen. The overall size and weight is much less than the units with a 10 inch screen. The downside is the shorter battery life, however. This is assuming that you get an Intel compatible netbook. If you get an ARM netbook, the battery life will be better. The ARM units are usually less expensive, also.
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