Astro, how’s the battery life on your Lenovos?
About 2.5 to just over three hours with standard 3 cell. I also bought a 6 cell Lenovo (directly from Lenovo - not a clone battery) and it gets 5.5 to a bit over 6 hours of real world use on a charge. Newegg is the best place to buy for the black and white units. For red, pink or blue you have to order from Lenovo.
I have the Acer, and I quite like it. The screen is nice and clear, and it’s great for surfing the net (which is primarily what I use it for).
As a bonus that I never expected–it runs World of Warcraft! Not well, and I certainly wouldn’t try to raid with it, but for solo questing and such it’s a passable alternative if you need to get your “fix” and your main machine isn’t nearby. I’ve had mine set up next to my work computer (I telecommute) for the last couple of days so I could check in briefly every hour to do a world-event-related thing.
The keyboard is small but usable. You just have to get used to it and pull your fingers in a bit. 
Don’t know if it runs Ventrilo, but I don’t see why not, if there’s an audio input. The speakers aren’t that impressive, though, as you might expect from a tiny inexpensive machine.
I have the 10" Eee PC, love it.
I’m not a huge fan of the 9" models, 10" was better as far as screen and keyboard size for me. I purchased the XP version with 1GB RAM 80GB spinning disk and it was $550. Now the 10" model is about $350 with a 160GB drive, so I definitely paid the early adopter tax. I can also report 4hr+ battery life (two full length movies) or up to 5.5 with the proc turned all the way down doing simple word processing.
The next major version of the Atom processor won’t be out for a while now so this is a good time to buy.
Well, if you get one that runs Windows (I got the Ubuntu Linux ones), then you could install MS Reader and use it that way. I’m not sure about flipping it sideways because I’ve never tried, but Windows used to let you do that in Display Settings or something.
That was part of my reasoning for buying one of mine - it was about the same price as a Kindle and far more versatile. I haven’t looked lately but I’m fairly sure there’s a Linux ebook reader out there somewhere.
The dell mini with windows XP allows you to rotate the screen 90 degrees easily. It is a little hard to deal with. Without a mouse it is near impossible to use. The laptop is a little clunky to hold sideways. I personally will not mess with rotating the display again it is awkward.
I’m typing this on an aspire one, no complaints at all. If you get one, definatly consider going for the larger battery…gets you 5+ hrs of operation vs. less than two with the standard battery. The battery can be upgraded after purchase, but is much cheaper to get it set up that way out of the box…that option also gets you the largest HDD option.
The lack of a cd drive is only an issue when I want to load software. I’ve got an outboard samsung SE-SO84 cd/dvd drive that gets all it’s power over usb. Linking to a desktop via ethernet or wifi is another option.
I was an early adopter and picked up a black 6-cell MSI Wind running XP Home. I’ve found it’s perfect for surfing, a little old school (early 90s and before) gaming, writing, and communicating with people.
The screen is mumble x 600 instead of x 768, which leads to some adjustment with pictures and/or fullscreen games.
Gets about 6-7 batt life hours depending on whether I’ve underclocked it or not, perfect for a plane flight.
The keyboard however has the Fn key outside of the Ctrl key, which means I perpetually screw up when wanting to hit Ctrl with my pinky knuckle. That and the crappy touchpad are my main two beefs with the Wind – otherwise I lurves it, I does.
Before getting a netbook, I encourage you to go play with one in the store, see if the keyboard will work for you.