yes, depending on operating system they are every bit as versatile as laptops, just much smaller, (read: more portable) and the hardware isn't as fast. this means longer battery life, but don't try running full featured pro-engineer and expect it to perform. If you already have a desktop, a netbook is a perfect addition, You can check email, surf the web, run some office programs, watch a movie, listen to music, even play "time wasting" games (solitaire, minesweeper, etc). If you're planning on using it as your only system, you will probably want to go with something more substantial. (optical drive, multiple gigs of ram, a better processor) if you have the option, I'd go with a XP system, it uses less resources than vista or 7, and it's still pretty good for most things. mine is an acer aspire one with an atom processor, 1gig of ram, runnin xp home sp3.