What I need from a 3G Netbook

I could use one know for

• working on the train
• working at cafes while waiting for the kids
• working in the country while visiting friends and family

My PC and laptop seem like overkill for researching on the web, emailing, writing reports and building a few models in a spreadsheet. They also use a lot of electricity and take up space.

To be an effective replacement for the PC and laptop, a netbook would need to have

1. Be reasonably priced. $200 would be nice.
2. Have a reasonably priced connection plan.
3. Have access to cheap or free software


1. Web browser
2. Word processor
3. Drawing tools
4. Spreadsheet
4. Reliable connection with good coverage.
5. Good battery life. 6 hours would be nice

Basic set of applications

1. Gmail with tasks
2. Google calender
3. Google Docs
4. GIT for source code management
5. YUML
6. Ubuntu or Windows XP with cygwin
7. Gnu tools
8. VNC or WRD
9. ssh

That would get me started. It would be nice to  have Eclipse and a local word processor but running these over a remote shell would be more than adequate. I worked that way with all my heavy tools on VMware instances for years and it worked well. The VMware instance were hosted in a data center and backed up regularly