Usually better than the i3, comparable to what you'd see in older Atom procs, but your mileage may vary depending on the architecture. Have a look for yourself.

From what I heard or could read , the Pentium is significantly better for most applications, and marginally better for the other. So between these two, its probably the best choice. As far as games are concerned, however, t's still a weak solution, even if much better than the Atom class CPU's. GPU intensive games are out of question, and only relatively old non GPU intensive games will run satisfactorily. ( if anyone wonders, the Celeron will be comparable at best, worse in most cases ).

probably because its small and cheap and portable
the intel compustick stil needs a keyboard mouse and screen
a netbook is wholly self contained

they are perfect for my first computer

Are you the brat it's being bought for? :P

Tablets are pretty efficient and depending on what someone needs there are chromebooks and the windows book things that they made to compete in that market. Think it was something else and not a netbook.

not bloody likely ;p

and most people know windows best so again a netbook is often the best choice
tablets are still rather limited over specialized and expensive compared to the likes of a netbook

What snowkatt said. Also, chromebooks are a little too restrictive softwarewise and windows books... if you mean those surface things they're hella expensive.