Surprised they are not strictly tablets, but I had read about these a while ago and was interested. Less then 10 seconds to boot, minimal HD, etc.

http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=os_chrm_58?&node=2858603011

Maybe I'm old fashioned but I don't understand the point of spending ~$400 on something strictly to surf the web when I can spend on the same amount of money and get a fully featured laptop. I have an extra 20 seconds to spend to wait for my laptop to boot up.

I suppose maybe in a corporate environment these might be beneficial, but for the individual consumer I fail to see the point.

Ofcourse this is coming from a guy who doesn't have a smart phone & just got text messaging on his phone last year.

I've seen these before. I watched a film that discussed Google's aspirations to phase out HD's completely. The idea was to build something like that and store data etc online rather than on the computer's HD.

Maybe I'm old fashioned but I don't understand the point of spending ~$400 on something strictly to surf the web when I can spend on the same amount of money and get a fully featured laptop. I have an extra 20 seconds to spend to wait for my laptop to boot up.

I suppose maybe in a corporate environment these might be beneficial, but for the individual consumer I fail to see the point.

Or when you decide you need to save something or email it to a friend.

The reliability of web services will DOOM us all... FCK the popo and FCK the web... Although I do love my YouTubes!!!

I've seen these before. I watched a film that discussed Google's aspirations to phase out HD's completely. The idea was to build something like that and store data etc online rather than on the computer's HD.

Sun Systems was trying to do that in the 90s I believe. Cloud technology sorta. Of course back then they didn't have mp3s, movies, photos, flash websites with graphics, etc to all be transferred back and forth.

Maybe I'm old fashioned but I don't understand the point of spending ~$400 on something strictly to surf the web when I can spend on the same amount of money and get a fully featured laptop. I have an extra 20 seconds to spend to wait for my laptop to boot up.

I suppose maybe in a corporate environment these might be beneficial, but for the individual consumer I fail to see the point.

Ofcourse this is coming from a guy who doesn't have a smart phone & just got text messaging on his phone last year.

This is one of the first peaks into the new world of cloud computing. The idea being, that few files will be actually be stored with you, they will be stored on the web somewhere. All the major computing companies have free file hosting, (Google Doc's, MSN Skydrive) etc. This in effect will be getting more and more people onto the web, increasing reach due to cheaper and cheaper computer options. The physical desktop's will still be around as people will, at least in the near future, want to keep vital files in their possession because anything connected will never be 100% secure. But as the industry and web is evolving, almost everything is done on line, so the home boxes are getting used less and less. The explosions of tablets and netbooks are leading the way right now. The hard drive as we know it will be going away, but there will be SSD's to run these things in the short term. Just surfing the web is going away, much of my day job is dependent on web connectivity and interaction.