Just used my Asus eee 1000HE to travel through DV running Delorme Topo. I can compare it to a normal full size Compaq laptop that I have run in the same application previously.
It is much smaller, a little lighter, and the screen while smaller is "crisper" if that makes sense. If you turn the power saving features off, the screen is plenty bright in the sun. I learned the hard way that you need to tell your hard drive to stop after 3 minutes, which makes it less likely to get damaged on washboard. I want a solid state drive to see if it makes a difference.
It is helpful to get a "car adapter" for $10 off of
ebay. If you buy the car adapters at Fry's they are like $60. Go to the
ebay site, type in "car adapter" and your computer model number, find the retailer with a sub $10 buy it now and 10000 transactions, and that's the one you want.
As far as performance goes, it is a little slower, especially if you try and run the 3-D Topo features. the recalcs when off course also take about 2 seconds longer to update, just enough to notice, but not enough to be a problem.
The biggest advantage of the netbooks is that many can be had with a battery that lasts 9 hours. I tested mine, it actually last more like 8, but compared to the 90 minutes of a normal laptop, it totally rocks.
I have seen ToolsRUs' tablet in person. It totally rocks and If I had unlimited $$ I would set up a dedicated mount as he has done.
Geeky story from Death Valley: 3 days into the trip, we hit Panamint Springs for gas and an icecream. It is literally in the middle of no where. The computer which was running the mapping software, goes "doink" Wireless Network Available. It turns out the gas station had an unsecured satellite based connection. I logged on, checked my email, scanned IH8MUD, and then drove back into the desert.
