A middle between this and the NITs would be nice - I think a 7-8" screen is a sweet spot for a comfortable surfing device, if it is also thin (12mm?) and light (<<500g).

I wonder why they didn't choose an ARM-based design. A OMAP3 or similar should be fast enough for just about everything on the internet, and it probably only takes a tiny amount of power compared to the Nano they're using...

Primarily Flash. TechCrunch believe that the tablets are effectively useless since they don't use x86. Nokia can have Flash & battery-life (i.e. ARM) by licencing it from Adobe. TechCrunch's "open source" tablet PC can't do that, so they have to go with x86 for the free plugin.

im tempted to say that flash is worthless...

Jaffa, yeah that seems likely. Still, seems like a big sacrifice purely for Flash alone...I'd rather see an Flash option that costs extra licensing costs for people who want it.

Another reason might be that building something based on standardized PC components is easier than doing something a bit more "exotic" like an ARM-based design.

from techcrunch.com:
so, the screen in the video isn't the one they'd sell with the device. i assume scrolling would be easier with a better screen...?

The other reason for going with x86 rather than OMAP3, is that they started this before OMAP3 reference designs like the Beagleboard were in production. And, as you say, it's easier to build something around an off-the-shelf x86 reference design.

Is it just me or was that "tablet" way too big. It was as thick as a laptop, which then brings the argument, why not buy a netbook?

A netbook with a rotating tablet form factor and touchscreen. What makes this device any different? These have been made for a long time (tablet PC), though they were not as cheap...

Because they want a bigger screen, and would rather have a touchscreen than a keyboard. (Each of which alone makes sense; the combination -- less so.)

Actually, I haven't seen any convertibles on the market yet that reasonably qualified as netbooks. The distinguishing factor between a netbook and a subnotebook/umpc/etc. is that a netbook is dirt-cheap, and that it's slow, not only by today's standards, but by yesterday's as well. These are only just now coming out, and will indeed be competition for this.

Current and recent convertible tablets are uniformly higher-performance and higher cost (and some are thicker, some not). But if you go back a bit farther (and thus look at used devices), there are some tablet PCs (convertible and slate) that would be close matches to this. But they're not netbooks, just old.

They show that a group of likeminded people can design a gadget using off-the-shelf components, which I think is interesting. But for now it's just vaporware.

Nonsense -- all the best advertisers use it!