Other than "discouraging interest from anyone outside the 'joe six-pack'
consumer horde"

I agree.

but the consumer horde doesn't have a six pack....
joe average has a uni-pack, cask, tun, beer-barrel, anything but a 2, 4 or 6 pack.
joe average who doesn't have the self-discipline, drive or self-motivation to want or do or learn more...
wouldn't have the stamina, fortitude, will, or drive to achieve that 6 pack.

I'm just guessing that there are more 6-packs here at tmo than anywhere else.
and ...
y'know...
even if we don't have more six-packs as a community than joe average.

I bet if....
as a community ..
we wished to prove it by starting a little contest...
a competition..
say...
from any particular day...doing an additional 2 crunches daily ...accumulative...day 1 is 2 crunches..day 2 is 4 crunches...day 3 is 6 ...etc.
for the period of 1 year..
the fortitude and determination of the applied community would be apparent from those selfies taken and posted here a year from now.
I got a mean crunch bench in my exercise room.
use it daily...
got decent definition...
won't be much work for me...

Anyway ..back to the actual topic...
yeah I heard that intel soc is supposed to be nothing but a pain...
huh...
so after all is said and done...what are the optimal handheld (or close in size) form factor devices (hell forget even "smartphones") which can run linux decently ...
let's have a short list.
I like lists.
they're concise.