Slow is relative to what you intend to do with the device, what you're used to and how you compare with this, and price/performance.

I can think of many purposes where a netbook or OMAP3 is not slow. Web browsing, e-mail, agenda, scientific calculator.

The latter was forced here in college. One had to buy one of these for a couple hunderd of EUR while nowadays on a tablet you can emulate such calculator.

A laptop has no relevance in this story. It is too big, too expensive, far too fast, and probably doesn't have the required battery life either. Same for the subnotebooks except that these are a bit better sized. In the case of heavy FP requirements there are some nice clusters available for the student; so here too, a full blown, quick laptop isn't necessary.

So neither is better or worse. It really depends on your purpose and your wallet. Market demands, and economy.