It struck me today while using my netbook that economy computers have reached that baseline of being good enough at more than the minimum set of tasks. With their very portable size and impressively growing battery life these minimally powered laptops can meet the needs of many folks.

The interesting thing to me is how we continuously discover how we really only need the basics. In the age when we’ve pushed computing hardware to levels that we never imagined, the utility of a basic computing platform is quite impressive. Because we’ve pushed the upper end so aggressively, the side affect is the low end has benefited in reductions in power requirements and size.

Making these low end systems so useful is the way they’ve been packaged into great “mini” laptops. Whether they’re a 9”, 10” or even the larger 12” models that stretch the definition of “netbook”, the ultra portability of a 2 to 3 lbs. laptop is a game changer. It’s just another case of less being more.

Of course, they can’t do everything. In fact, they really are only good for the basics as I mentioned. Anything more than web browsing, email, reading, and some light office apps like spreadsheets, word processing, and presentations. If you need much more than that, you’ll quickly find the limits of these systems.

However, therein lies the catch, the majority of the work done is in this basic range of computing tasks. Writing ideas out, answering email, reading news and information, keeping in touch… the bulk of what we do can be done with a netbook. Especially if you’re a web worker since most everything one does is web-based anyway.

While I’m not suggesting that netbooks will be the main computer for the majority of folks, I know some will be tempted to try.

Good enough. This is where good design and reasonable feature sets reign. The benefit of a simple, cohesive design with a feature set that meets the expectations of the user can be quite successful.