I've written many tens of thousands of lines of C on my netbook, which has a 10.1" screen, also using Vim, so I believe it's possible.

Still, I'd really like just a smidge more space, especially in the vertical. At least 168 pixels, to be specific.

That's one advantage he has with the iPad - he can easily switch between portrait and landscape, depending upon his needs.

I'd love to be able to occasionally turn my netbook screen to portrait!

I wondered about that, too, but I haven't noticed a feeling of being constrained or blinkered. I'm editing 85 rows and 35 columns with a pleasantly-large font. Check your editing space inside an IDE - is it really that much larger?

My guess is that (1) any function I'm writing is generally entirely within view anyway, and (2) with Vim I never scroll around looking for something, I jump directly to it with a search command.

I think it's the resolution that matters, and 1024x768 is pretty comfortable for work (I know higher resolutions are even better, but I've been using 1024x768 for half a decade on old CRT and LCD monitors - it never failed to deliver).

When I switched to a new smartphone, the resolution was the most important change - with 854x480 pixels I can read forums and sites easily, as opposed to a 320x480 display...