My group has started using minis instead of scribbling X's and O's on a white board. I took a map I got with my 3.5e DMG I think that was a poster map with a tile-grid on the back and a darker pre-mapped set of rooms on the front.

One of the players took it to Kinko's and had them laminate it. They trimmed to about 1/4 inch from the edge of the poster and it's holding up just fine. I can still scribble on terrain, features track iniative and NPC hit points off to the side. It's worked like a charm for us.

We have discussed a sheet of acrylic plastic with some 1pt size vinyl tape marking off a grid also. This would have a hinged metal backing and allow us to slide in custom battle maps and use magnetic tokens for things.