Nope, Eric, I haven't considered an iPad at all. I really need MS Office for my type of work, and to be honest, the iPads don't really appeal to me (apart from that, I hate iTunes!)
Jester, my reason for wanting a long battery life is that I'll probably be staying in either bare-bones guesthouse rooms or dorms, meaning that I'll probably be wanting to do my writing in cafes, etc, where I may not be able to plug in. By the way, I'm travelling to Europe -- at first mainly Eastern Europe and Turkey. Later I'll end up in the West and Morocco. I'm glad you like Melbourne, my home town. It's a great little city. (Travellers often say that they loved spectacular Sydney for a short visit, but Melbourne's a city for living.)
You've all given me much food for thought. Most of the netbooks I've looked at have either had XP or W7, not Starter, so I don't think I'd be going for Starter anyway. Good tip about not getting a unit that's been around longer than 6 months; for some reason (maybe Melbourne's a bit of a tech backwater) most of the shops stock really old netbooks...
Oh, and just to clear up the he/she issue -- I'm a she.
Thanks to you all.