I'd like to debunk one myth pushed by Amazon. It DOES need color. Not only does black and white not work adequately for color photographs, many many textbooks use color diagrams and use color in other ways.

If you disagree, I invite you to read the triumphant hype I guarantee Amazon will use when they release a color Kindle. It will happen.

I don't mind devices that do one task at a time (which is what "monotasking" means to me). But I do mind devices that are only able to run one application at all (or a very narrow, and static, range of applications). That's what turns me off about the crunchpad. "browsing only" isn't enough for me... and adding the possibility of skype isn't enough of a fix.

Mainly browsing? sure. Only enough screen/CPU to do have one running task at a time? sure. No Pidgin/IM client? not good enough. No ssh/VNC client? not good enough. No PDF viewing? not good enough. Not even a light Office document viewing app? not good enough. Not being designed to install more apps as people come up with novel/useful/killer ones? not acceptable.

(and, obviously, it would need some form of virtual keyboard for some of those)

The best thing I can think of to do with the crunchpad is: expand its RAM and storage as much as possible, and then install Mer-x86 on it.

id like to see the full specs on that pad before i pass final judgement, but so far its borderline meh except for packed with a stand, keyboard and mouse...

except that makes it a very odd netbook...