When less is more and simple is beautiful

Recently, there has been a great shift towards cheap subnotebook portables like Asus' eeePC, Everex's CloudBook and E-lead's NoahPad. These portables, which might result under powered and far from the "state or the art", have been received with enthusiasm by potential tech savvy customers and have even made its way into the general audience (to the extend that general media have started to cover them)

I personally found these cheap portables, targeted to a specific function, more attractive that those over priced "high end" portables which are neither a good desktop replacement, not portable enough. Actually, I'm just waiting impatiently to put my hands on a NoahPad.

One interesting conclusion from the general reaction is the discovery of a new category of users, for whom a simple, affordable and ultra portable device to surf the web is a real gain. But these devices are also appealing for the millions of home uses that only want to read email, print some photos and little more.

But even more important, such portables seams to be the killer devices for the final Linux take over of the desktop.