For years I used to drag around my old '03 Dell. 6.5 lbs 15.6" used to be gaming laptop. It makes you look old in the TSA line. After that it was all about size. I got the ASUS Eee PC model 1018P.
It did everything I wanted. Surfing, netflix, bidding in FLICA, and accessing crewtrack. 10" screen, very light, and very small. 6h+ battery. No more fighting for the outlets. All this for $379. The built in webcam and the mike was kind of shady and the two buttons on the touch pad are hard to press but you never use those. Overall very good quality. I was happy with it until suddenly during a BIOS update it bricked itself. Today I was called to pick up a new one or get store credit.
So now I have the chance to do it again. Although I have only good things to say about this Eee PC, I am fairly sure I am not getting another 10" one, or one with the Atom N450 processor. I found I was scrolling a lot with the 10". I can do that on my iPhone. The CPU and the 1 gig ram was ok most the time but a simple skype video call made it cough.
Now I think I will pay extra and get an ultralight laptop. iPad is not a contender because it has no camera, and crewtrack does not load fully on Safari. Also many websites redirect you to their mobile version. Not sure if that can be turned off or not. Plus my wife wants one so we will get that regardless
I agree with the guy who said 12" seems the way to go. I wold check out the Lenovo X100e as well. 11.6" screen. On sale right now for $399. Comes with the full version of win7 btw but still the Athlon Neo which is about the same as the Intel Atom. Or the Lenovo S12.1 which comes with the Atom.
I think I will go for the 13.3" screen Toshiba Protege laptop for $779. Mostly because my local bestbuy has it right now. Comes with a 2.4Ghz Core i3, 4gig ram. It is 1" thick. My Eee PC was 0.9". Only 2" longer, and 0.8 lbs heavier. But for $400 more than a good netbook.