This month has a great story on the history of Netbooks and the reasons they’ve become so popular. Price is definitely a chief one, and here’s a perfect example: Buy.com has a refurbished Asus Eee PC 900 Netbook for $179.99 shipped.

As you might expect given that impulse-buy price, this model is pretty bare-bones: 512MB of RAM, a 4GB solid-state drive, and a Linux operating system.

Of course, for tasks like e-mail, Web browsing, and other online stuff, that’s more than enough horsepower. If you routinely work “in the cloud,” you should find this a nice little gateway.

And speaking of size, the Eee PC measures just 8.9 inches by 6.7 inches by 1.3 inches and weighs only 2.2. pounds. Definitely an easy system to travel with. But there’s no mention of the warranty, but most likely it’s 90 days