Months later, nobody has announced any detail on the Chrome OS machines which will supposedly be shipping in just a few months. But there are rumors–courtesy of rumor kingpin Digitimes–that Asus has plans to release a netbook for $200-$250 in June. One that might conceivably run Chrome OS. (I say “might conceivably” because Digitimes’ sources say that Asus “should” use either Chrome OS or Android on the machine–which is a whole lot vaguer than saying that Asus will use either one of those operating systems.)

Could Asus sell a decent Chrome OS laptop with an 12.1″ screen and built-in wireless broadband for $250 or less? That sounds aggressive to me. But if they can manage it, the deal sounds a whole lot more appealing than the $449 Chromebook I envisioned. And if they can sell a clamshell device at that pricetag, couldn’t they whack off the keyboard, add an on-screen one, and have a plausible low-end tablet?

Here’s a bit of a statement the company released today, under the title “Acer NOT phasing out netbooks in favor of tablet:”

Mobility, which has always been part of Acer’s DNA, finds a new form of expression in the range of tablets on offer, which feature various display sizes and models designed to fit different kinds of usage scenarios. Acer recognizes that the computer market is changing. As PCs are no longer only used to create content but are more and more becoming consumption tools, new devices and new form factors are appearing.

This means the range of devices available to users is getting wider and tablets are just another piece of the mosaic. Therefore, they will find their space next to netbooks and notebooks.

One of the things I like about Acer is that its executives are sometimes startlingly honest (when it came to the fiasco known as Windows Vista, CEO Gianfranco Lanci didn’t mince words). So I suspect that the Acer honcho quoted in the original stories wasn’t misquoted–and that if his point was that tablets will cut into netbook sales, he’s right.

But I can’t see tablets killing netbooks–which are, let’s remind ourselves, nothing more than a type of notebook that happens to be small, cheap, and (usually) not exactly bursting with high-performance components. There’s a place for them, just as there’s a place for cars that are small, cheap, and not exactly bursting with high-performance components. And even if netbooks are no longer sexy–and hey, they lost their luster a long time ago–I suspect they’ll be on the market for years to come. Maybe even after some companies which are currently jumping into the tablet market decide to jump back out of it again.

Pundits and industry types love to predict the demise of netbooks; pundits and industry types keep underestimating their appeal. I’m pleased with my iPad, but if I were required by law to own only one computing device, and was forced to choose between an iPad and an Acer netbook, I’d go with the Acer–at least until Apple introduces an iPad with a keyboard. Which it won’t.

How about you?

I’m looking forward to seeing Chrome OS machines, whenever they show up, but I worry that it’s both outdated (it dates from the pre-iPad era, and feels like it) and ahead of its time (it assumes you don’t want to run any local apps at all). We’ll see.

Jobs was, of course, positioning the iPad as Apple’s answer to the netbook. But that didn’t make the iPad a netbook, or anything very much like a netbook at all. It was sort of like comparing the world’s best motorcycle to a bunch of ho-hum subcompact cars.

But if the rumors are true, Apple will soon announce a new version of its MacBook Air thin-and-light notebook with an 11.6″ display and a pricetag meaningfully lower than the current Air. Any such machine would still cost much more than a run-of-the-mill netbook, and have a far higher cool factor–and at 11.6″, it could have the acceptably comfy keyboard that smaller netbooks often lack. Even so, it may be as close to an “Apple netbook” as we’ll see. And assuming that such a product is indeed imminent, it’ll be fascinating to see Apple make a machine with at least a hint of netbookishness after the world stopped paying all that much attention to netbooks–and years after pundits gave up insisting that the company needed to get into the game.

According to DigiTimes, Asus president and chief executive Jerry Shen acknowledged that the iPad was cutting into netbook sales, which fell short of expectations last quarter. At a conference for investors, Shen reminded the audience that Asus is working on its own tablet and e-reader, but said the company will continue offer the Eee PC netbook line.

There is at least some other proof that the iPad is hurting netbooks. A Morgan Stanley/Alphawise study conducted in May showed that 44 percent of U.S. consumers who planned to buy an iPad were doing so in lieu of a netbook or notebook PC. And why not? Between smartphones and PCs, there might be room for a third device, but four is a stretch, especially when tablets and netbooks overlap in their ability to check e-mail and surf the web. That doesn’t mean the iPad is killing netbooks, it just means consumers will make a choice, which explains why hardware makers besides Apple are trying to push out their own tablets.

Still, I’m taking Shen’s claims about his company’s netbook performance with a grain of salt. Keep in mind that Asus lost netbook market share between 2008 and 2009, and could lose its second place standing behind Acer with strong netbook sales expected of Samsung. Even before the iPad launched, Asus was already seeing flat-to-meager increases in netbook sales. Meanwhile, iSuppli expects overall netbook sales to grow by 30 percent this year.

In other words, Apple’s tablet makes a good scapegoat.

I’ve been keeping an eye on Jolicloud for about a year now, but never tried it, and wondered what would become of it after Google previewed Chrome OS. Both operating systems are driven primarily by web apps, with an emphasis on storing things online and syncing to the cloud so it doesn’t really matter what computer you’re on. Judging from a company blog post on the latest version and video preview by Netbook News, Jolicloud has not given up the fight.

The key difference from Chrome OS — aside from the fact that Chrome OS hasn’t launched yet — is Jolicloud’s all-encompassing approach to both downloadable and web-based apps. While the OS makes use of web apps like Facebook and YouTube, it also allows for installed software such as Skype and Boxee, all through a storefront that right now has more than 700 free apps.

There are some other neat features as well, like an HTML5 launcher that you can manage through a web browser on any PC, and a social stream that lets you geek out with fellow Jolicloud users. Users who dual-boot with Windows can even access the Windows file system.

If you don’t have a netbook, just take Jolicloud to be another sign of PC appification (the fact that I didn’t coin that term is yet another sign). Jolicloud is among the first to make the PC look more like a smartphone, and with Android netbooks surfacing periodically and Microsoft possibly considering an app store for Windows 8, it certainly won’t be the last.

2014 is the year when the install base of tablets would eclipse netbooks for the first time. Ultimately, within five years Forrester expects the market to look like this: Notebooks, 42 percent; Tablets, 23 percent; Desktops, 18 percent; and Netbooks 17 percent.

“Tablet growth will come at the expense of netbooks, which have a similar grab-and-go media consumption and Web browsing use case as tablets but don’t synchronize data across services like the iPad does,” Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps said.

The firm pointed out that the success of tablets is surprising since Apple is successfully “teaching” consumers to want the iPad tablet, where they may not have considered one before. Add to this the expected cavalcade of also-rans looking to usurp Apple’s new-found dominance in the sector, and you can see why tablet growth will be so dramatic.

It’s quite possible that Apple itself could even blow by Forrester’s numbers all on its own: its already sold two million iPads, and the firm has only forecasted 3.5 million for the entire year. It’s also not too far-fetched to think that  in 2015 Apple would be a large portion of that 20 million sold.

If that’s true, it won’t be traditional notebooks and desktops where Apple gains serious market share — it will be in tablet computing, which many (including myself) thought there was no real market for.

The Satellite A665 is an entertainment-focused system with a 16-inch screen, available in versions with Intel Core i3, i5, and i7 CPUs, as well as AMD’s quad-core Phenom II. It starts at $799.99 and has Dolby Advanced Audio, DVD upconversion for a sort of simulated HD effect, and Sleep-and-Music, which lets you plug an external music source such as your MP3 player or phone into the Harmon Kardon speakers even when the computer isn’t powered up. And some versions have Nvidia’s Optimus graphics system, which automatically switches between integrated and discrete graphics on the fly to either conserve power or boost performance as appropriate.

Then there’s the A665 3D Edition, a $1599.99 variant which packs a slightly smaller screen (15.6″) but which is one of the first notebooks that does 3D:

The 3D A665 uses Nvidia’s active-shutter 3D glasses and requires an external USB base station to communicate with them. (Nvidia has told me that there will eventually be notebooks with built-in transmitters.) 3D Blu-ray just barely exists, so right now, the feature’s really only relevant for games. I wonder how the skeptical consumers we showed 3D TV to would react to PC-based 3D; judging from my chat with a Toshiba executive, I think the company sees 3D as a specialty item for now rather than the Next Big Thing.

I’m also intrigued by the new Satellite T200 line–an update to the T100 models which the company introduced last Fall. These are economical, reasonably powerful, reasonably thin-and-light models with good battery life of the sort that some folks predicted would crush netbooks. They haven’t, but they’re a good choice for lots of folks.

The T215 starts at $469.99 and has an 11.6″ screen; the T235 starts at $549.99 has a 13.3″ inch screen. Various Intel and AMD processors are available. The new designs sport “Chiclet”-style tile keyboards and wider touchpads, and are definitely larger cousins of Toshiba’s excellent netbooks from a design standpoint.

Speaking of netbooks, Toshiba isn’t giving up on ‘em–instead, it’s making them even more economical. Its line now starts with the NB255, which, at $299.99, is the company’s cheapest netbook to date. It’s got an Intel Atom N455 CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and a six-cell battery. It looks like a worthy contender among low-end netbooks, but I’d spring for  the $379.99 NB305, which has a nicer tile keyboard and a battery that’s flush with the case so it doesn’t jut out in back.

All these new Toshibas are due to go on sale next Sunday, June 20th.