Get a better camera than the crappy and puny megapixel webcam on the lid, you probably have one already. As for hard drive space . . . what won't fit on a 8 or 16GB SD/USB thumb drive?

It seems like your thinking about the netbook is like a bloated 17" screen, multi core, optical drive equiped laptop. The netbook experience is the exact opposite. Are you really going to use it to work on CAD/CAM or Photoshop or full on digital video editing? Or, are you going to be like 90% of users and web surf, check e-mail, do light WP or spreadsheet work. Consider apps like Google Docs means that you don't need to have application software on the device or even store the data on the device . . . it's all on the web/cloud.

I didn't find 512mb confining running Ubuntu and 4 hours is plenty of time before finding an ac outlet.