The battery thing isn't necessarily true; I have an Asus netbook with a battery life of around 6 hours (with the wifi on) that I got for about $340. I think that's comparable to the Chromebook's battery life, right?Any netbook that costs around the same price as a chromebook WILL have about half the battery life and a crappier screen. It will also need regular software updates, won't boot as fast, etc.
Yeah, its comparable (Samsung CB battery is 8 hours, Acer 6) but what about the screen resolution and processor? The cheap netbooks I've used have all had really poor screen resolutions, and the cheaper atom chips can struggle to do simple things like display jpgs on a web page. You might find a netbook that can compete on 2 of the 4 key measurements (in this case battery and price but not screen or CPU), but I haven't seen anything that is genuinely comparable at the same price. I'm happy to be proven wrong, of courseThe battery thing isn't necessarily true; I have an Asus netbook with a battery life of around 6 hours (with the wifi on) that I got for about $340. I think that's comparable to the Chromebook's battery life, right?