The 311c is definitely a trade-off vs other netbooks though. Been weighing it up against the competition myself and there's a few down-sides vs an ordinary netbook. For the sake of comparison I'll be comparing it to HP's Mini 210 which is around the same price (though can be had for as little as £200).
1. Battery life is hours worse. Rated at around 5-6 hours instead of 10+. In reality this means a low of about 4 hours if you push the machine.
2. Build quality isn't as good. The 311c feels cheaper, the keyboard isn't as good (it's actually smaller!) with the keys being glossy and quite wobbly. Compared to the 210's chiclet keyboard and solid build it's really poor.
3. It's larger than the 1" extra screen space would suggest. It's still a small machine, but it's quite a bit thicker than most modern netbooks.
4. A minor one, but the Mini 210 has QuickWeb, which is a HP branded version of Splashtop. It's basically an instant-on mini OS for browsing the web/IM/listening to music.
They aren't deal-breakers, but worth considering IMO. The 311c does lead in other areas. The screen res is a lot better, there's a HDMI port, ION massively increases gaming potential and gives a load of extra processing power in CUDA-enabled programs. It all comes down to how you want to use it really. For me, if the 210 had the 311c's screen res there'd be no comparison.
There's also the Windows 7 Starter vs XP debate. Personally I'm gonna install Win7 Home Premium on whichever one I buy so it's kinda a moot point for me.
while the asus is around £320 the one with win 7 is £380