I spent ages deliberating this one last year - in the end I opted for a netbook (Samsung NC10) - it's been the perfect choice....

Despite being in my pannier for over 10,000km - mostly on bumpy, dusty, African dirt tracks - it's still in good working order. So I really don't think a SSD is necessary.

I use it for email/web/Word/Excel, writing my blog and storing/managing my large collection of photos plus some editing too - admittedly the photo editing is a little slow, but perfectly do-able especially for minor edits (I use Faststone and also have downloaded GIMP) and ideally I'd like a larger screen, but I decided to forego that in preference to smaller size/weight.

It's 10" and will just fit in my ortlieb handlebar bag (diagonally) if I need to carry it into town. If I wasn't interested in the photo storage/editing I would have got a smaller 8-9" one which would fit in the handlebar bag properly.

If you're not planning on much typing / photography editing (I like having the near full-size keyboard) then you don't really need a netbook at all and a handheld / iphone would be preferable I think.

I also have an external harddrive for a backup of everything which I would recommend as they're small, light and cheap now.

The only thing the netbook doesn't really handle is video and it doesn't have a CD drive... I don't know if that's important for you.

The battery life on the Samsung (6-cell battery) is about 5 hours which I'm happy with. So - the NC10 netbook is great but seriously consider a handheld....