[Lorcan]

Laptops can take more wear and tear than a tablet, but a tablet is more portable and has a pretty good battery life. It is either a writing or touchscreen interface so surfing the net or writing out comments will be slower than on a laptop.
If you want a long(ish) battery life but still need a keyboard to type fast and don't have huge hands (trust me it makes a big difference) a netbook is probably the better way to go but tablets are making leaps and bounds and in the time it takes for you to get one it maybe the better deal.
Hp had a 'tablet' laptop that had a touchscreen and writing interface when in tablet mode. Once you get a hang of writing and can write fast you will speed through it(I used mine to take notes and print them out later it worked very well). Most that I know of that are new don't use the writing interface though.
Also if getting a tablet with the fingerprint scanner option pay the extra money to get it, you will get a lot more use out of it than you think.