I think the OP fails to understand what a netbook is for. It's not your primary PC, it really does do a lousy job for that. And when trying to do so, it is going to have poor battery life, and performance problems executing demanding software.

But as a highly-portable tool for note-taking, i.e, "book" and quick access to webmail and calendar, i.e., "net", it's satisfactory.

Not that it's great, but I don't think the items cited are the faults. My biggest complaint is that note-taking can be tough because of the cramped keyboard.