I've thought about buying one of those repeatedly, but have been afraid that it won't play HD video smoothly or have decent battery life (the bigger issue; My n

I've thought about buying one of those repeatedly, but have been afraid that it won't play HD video smoothly or have decent battery life (the bigger issue; My netbook started out getting 7.25 hours and still gets 3ish years later). Obviously would immediately swap the spinner for an SSD, too. I've actually been hoping that Haswell would revitalize the market for machines like this like you mention, but all it seems to have done (so far) is make every machine like this get a touchscreen thrown on it and marked up another $150.