I think that many casual users of computers (for internet surfing, e-mail, pictures, etc) will find that the new emergence of netbooks will find them intriguing and, less expensive that a full blown laptop or PC.
A Netbook is a new type of laptop computer, defined by size, price, horsepower, and operating system. They are small, cheap, under-powered, and run either an old or unfamiliar operating system.
Netbooks run either Windows XP Home edition or Linux (not only is Linux unfamiliar to many, but the versions of Linux on Netbooks are not the mainstream popular distributions). They do not run XP Professional, Vista, or OS X. Microsoft arbitrarily restricts Netbooks from running the Professional Edition of Windows XP. Likewise, Apple arbitrarily restricts OS X to Apple hardware and it has never played in the low-end realm that Netbooks occupy.* Vista requires too much horsepower to run well on a Netbook. HP has been the only company to offer Vista on a Netbook. The price, however, was so high that it's debatable whether such a machine qualifies as a Netbook.
Here is an article on the newest internet machine that has hit the market: