Janet,
Weight is a very important factor in a camino, carrying too much unnecessary weight and not completing the journey due to injury, etc. That is why many pilgrims have to resort to shipping some of their unnecessary items (including netbooks) to Santiago ahead of them.
How one will evaluate whether an item is necessary is through it's utilisation. If you don't need to use it everyday, or if the use is minimal and be can be avoided, then it is dead weight.
A netbook is a good companion for journey that last a year but may be be good when you are actually walking 20-30 km a day on the camino. A paper journal may be a better tool for this. You can use anywhere, doesn't need to be charged and also write all foreign characters. You can''t use a netbook in the bunk as you will be disturbing the others with glare of the screen. And not every albergue will have a big enough area outside the bedrooms for a netbook (which really needs a table) as oppose to a phone/pad. The only time for writing a journal is mostly in the late afternoon, while waiting for your laundry to dry. And internet connection if you are lucky to have a municipal library nearby with free wifi, or an internet cafe.
If you are not technically iterate, all the more you should get a controlled device like a kindle, ipod touch, ipad. And don't rely on voice recognition in a netbook. They are still way slower than writing for anything but short, simple sentences.
Small, light, something that boots up in seconds (not minutes) is what is needed. Netbooks are for those who really needs a laptop/desktop features along the camino, which for most cases are unnecessary.
A weight of a phone device with the screen screen of an iPad would be perfect. But since technology can't yet deliver us a device like this, hence the debate on phone/pad/netbooks still rages on.
