[citation][nom]wildwell[/nom]With all else equal, better batteries are going to increase the price of a netbook. What about an inexpensive, slimmed down version of Win 7? Something still solid in web security (or at least as 'solid' as Windows can be) and pretty looking but without all the extra hardware drivers, etc.[/citation]
What the hell do hardware drivers have to do with battery life?
Just use windows 7, and optimise the settings (turn off aero, and windows search (which will reduce the amount of time hard drive is active), search shouldn't be necessery on a netbook, and it looks better than XP without aero (though no aero peek... which is useful, but you're probably not overly multitasking on a netbook)