inexpensive laptop may be appropriate for many uses

In an interesting article, Road-testing the $100 laptop's 'appropriate technology', Ryan Bigge talks about the implications of inexpensive laptops

In creating a cheap laptop, the XO has also started a fresh debate about affordable technology. Affordable and appropriate interrelate quite closely, and the XO hints at the added costs of proprietary operating systems offered by Mac and Apple, along with the price to be paid for the Intel brand. In this way, appropriate technologies such as the XO serve as an implicit critique of the marketplace.

Plus which, any article that includes the TRS-80 Model 100 deserves a mention.
(I saw, but never used the Model 100.  I used to go to RadioShack and play Hammurabi on their regular TRS-80s.)

You can see video of him demoing the XO.

The inexpensive laptop trend was noted as part of ALA LITA Top Trends 2008

• Hearing a lot lately about lightweight road computers
• Could be appropriate for loaners, not as big of a deal if beat up, most of work on network anyway.
• A discussion of solid state hard drives & sealed keyboards… more durable
• Relying more on the Internet for applications and data means we can have a much smaller laptop

conference notes from Lauren Pressley
via Michael Ireland

I hadn't realised but there is already a small laptop (the Asus Eee) with solid-state storage out in Canada for C$300, it sells through The Source (formerly Radio Shack)

see e.g.

ASUS EEE 2GB SURF MOBILE INTERNET DEVICE, GREEN

You can see others in the Mobile Internet category

http://www.thesourcecc.com/estore/category.aspx?language=en-CA&catalog=Online&category=Mobile_Internet

In the US, you can get them through Amazon (below is an affiliate link), for US$300

with that kind of price and availability, the barrier to mobile computing is very low.

If I understand correctly, you can buy an SDHC card to add more storage.

They have some new models planned as well

The Register - Hardware - Second-gen Eee PC

I wouldn't put the MacBook Air in this same space, as it is much more expensive.

The Air is more like the ultimate Road Warrior laptop, you pay a heavy price in terms of limited expandability.  Since I use my laptop mostly as a home desktop replacement, I'm continuing to look at the regular MacBook as my next computer (I have a PowerBook G4 right now).

SIDEBAR: Dear Radio Shack, do you really need an "MSCSProfile" of

287001FD2674671CC1C6E1B8FD422E0877FC152AF8DD5EA4F64CC488CD9F9EBB8663805103CFB74
01041BEB7B395895C25D0D2FA5E2CFCD5D4F58390B0377D79966CED87AC19D769C2D0DC51FEBF8
7913B4E23159DD17CBAC78B9FDB32CF03ECF2F50753794A30EF0E5A558850D5AD85500469650F624
FBD9F19AA4A6BE0B24BC8ADCEC1815BED94

in your URL?  What are you trying to do, describe every atom in my body?

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