2010 is set to start with a bang as far as netbook fans are concerned. 2009 was a fruitful year for netbook manufacturers. The market started to truly blossom and come to its own. Netbook sales did in fact help computer manufacturers to offset their losses in other markets and increase their earnings for the year. While the margins are much lower in the netbook market, the demand has been very high for netbooks. 2010 is going to be the year in which the line between netbooks and laptops become blurry. Till now, netbooks have been looked at super portable laptops that are not capable of handling complex computing tasks. That is about to change with Nvidia ION and new generation netbook processors.

You can count Toshiba and Acer as two other companies that are jumping on board with Intel Pinetrail CPUs. Toshiba NB305 not only comes with ATOM N450, but it also offers 11 hours of battery life which is more than enough to get some work done on the road without having to constantly look for your adapter.

Gateway LT2102H is much more affordable and seems to be a low-end netbook. It does come with N450, but it does need some work in the storage and battery life departments. We are of course only days away from CES 2010, so you can expect more powerful netbooks to be introduced to the market. We already know that ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1201N will come with a dual core CPU, so that is another option to look at for those who are shopping for a new netbook. Let’s not forget that ATOM N450 is not going to suddenly make a super laptop out of netbooks. But it’s faster and can handle HD graphics much better. The netbook market is still very young, so these units will only get better. It will just take time.

Your take: what upcoming netbook are you most excited about?