A survey of 600 US netbook owners by NPD in April and May found very mixed reactions and satisfaction levels. According to the survey:

• "58% of consumers who bought a netbook instead of a notebook said they were very satisfied with their purchase, compared to 70% of consumers who planned on buying a netbook from the start."
• Among those 18-24, "65% said they bought their netbooks expecting better performance, and only 27% said their netbooks performed better than expected." 
• The chief feature of netbooks, mobility, is apparently not being used by most people who buy them. NPD found that 60% of netbook owners never took the devices from the house.  

People are primarily responding to the lower pricing of netbooks, it would appear, rather than their portability. The now widespread presence of netbooks places the entire PC OEM industry in something of a difficult spot. If these findings are representative of the larger population, sales may slow -- netbooks have been a bright spot in PC hardware sales -- but consumers won't want to "go back" to paying considerably more for conventional laptops.

It appears to be a matter however of setting the right expectations of consumers, who largely seem to be believe they're getting full notebook memory and functionality in simply a smaller (and cheaper) package.

In our recent consumer survey, we asked people in the abstract if they would rather have a smartphone or netbook if the costs were equal:

“If the costs were the same, would you rather have a smartphone or a netbook as your mobile Internet device?”

LMS/Opus (question n=352; survey n=611)