Michael 's recent article jogged memories of this thread, discussing use of Netbooks for field work:
http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....ress+card\that was a year ago, and Netbooks have exploded in their use and variety. They seem like they should be useless and silly, small underpowered minimal feature laptops, but in fact turn into your 'go to' computer of choice when checking mail or surfing, and can handle 90% of everyday computing needs. Apple are very behind the curve on this one, and will have to bring something to market soon, though how they're going to wrangle their usual high markup on it and cripple it enough so as not to leach sales from their profitable regular notebooks, is beyond me. Touch Screen is the obvious answer, but all the netbook manufacturers are onto that move too, so stiff competition can be expected, at non-Apple prices.
I own one, and bought another for a relative I was so impressed. Wonderful machines, and for $300-$400, you cant grumble.
ps - you can of course hack netbooks to run OSX, the webforums are full of them. so if you're a geek, you can have an Apple Netbook now.
There's a chart of recent compatibles here:
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/12/17/o...k-compatib.htmlpersonally I find using XP just fine, if you are going to work tethered, be sure to get one with an Express card slot for firewire.
(its really time MF backs came with USB or eSATA port option, now even Apple are dropping Firewire from smaller Notebooks)