This interesting story at Computerworld UK came to via @sascha_p through Twitter. There are some very tasty nuggets of information in the story that looks at data collected via a PriceGrabber.com Consumer Behavior Report.

It seems that the emerging (or "nascent" in Apple's words) netbook category has manufacturers in a "race to the bottom", according to a Sony representative, and that traditional notebook sales are being cannabalised.

I know many netbook owners (I have a couple of them myself) and no a single one of them uses the netbook as their main computer. However, it has in some cases brought them into the notebook market. For example, some folks have a desktip system and would like a notebook. Until recently, that meant an investment of several hundred dollars just for an entry level unit. Now, they can buy an entry level Eee PC for about $330AUD. In that sense, they actually making the mobile computer market larger.

However, in these depressed economic times, many are skipping on the current round of laptop replacements and are either hanging on to older hardware or replacing with a netbook.

Are you contemplating a new notebook? Is a decent netbook in your calculations?