Just wanted to agree with polarbear - a very important advantage of using his own laptop is the ability to take it home and to set up files in his own way. A thumb nail can accomplish some of this - but it adds an additional step.
As far as the type of laptop - if my son had not been so comfortable with apple, we would have purchased a windows based laptop. They are cheaper and the Dragon Naturally Speaking software is better on windows. He mostly uses word, kurzweil, and power point. Sometimes excel - but not often.
I didn't research netbook options - but it seems that they may be able to do the trick for a lower price tag and longer battery life.
And like polarbear's child, ds uses laptop for state testing. He finds it easier to use his own rather than the school computers. Not sure how his new school will handle this!
