That's it, juice, you've nailed it!

I realized a long time ago from following this thread that what we want is basically... a netbook. Perhaps a smaller one so it can be called handheld to fit the subject but that is a detail.

The netbook era has come and gone. It lasted all of what? A year? It left such a lasting legacy that most of you will possibly not even know what a netbook is.

Most netbooks that I know of came with some sort of Linux preinstalled, to push down the cost. They were designed to run Linux. They failed to make a hole in the world. Manufacturers then woke up and started offering the same models with Windows. That took off slightly better but still not good enough. When first iPad and then Android copycats emerged, that was the end of the netbook era.

I am still trying to figure out why. As far as I am concerned, something of a laptop form factor, with a general computer capabilities, but smaller is far superior to a flat slab with a glass front and no buttons. It seems that the masses disagree. Not only general masses: just look at our own community. The overall feeling that yet another iPhone wannabe is the bees knees is almost palpable. The fact that it runs something that could just about pass for Linux is often used as an argument although to me it sounds more like an excuse.

In short, no one wants a hanheld computer any more. You and I may want one but we are small individual islands surrounded by a sea of apathy. We need to wake up and realize what the manufacturers have realized a long time ago: trying to bring a handheld general computer to the market is an economic suicide. If anyone would even consider doing that, it would be only a big manufacturer like Sony, doing it on the side and subsidizing it heavily from their other businesses.

In even shorter, it ain't gonna happen. DIY or nothing.