It seems to me that building an el cheapo subtablet isn't exactly rocket science (anymore). If the people who are now developing the Pandora had left out the keypad, they'd have made one in basically under two years from idea to realisation, without any big corporation and without containers full of money.

The main problem for a tablet, and especially a subtablet, is the user interface first and useful applications second. This is where Nokia's tablets really suck: The user interface was designed without any vision or "grand plan" and the applications are basically retaylored Linux desktop applications. The only people who are content with these tablets are apparently either Linux sysadmins who like to have a portable terminal and people who are only interested in looking at content, not creating it.

OTOH, I see applications around me that might become killer apps for these subtablets. Take e.g. EverNote, a note-taking, information collecting application that outperforms Microsoft's OneNote in all aspects. A tablet version of such an app could -- nay: Is! -- immensely useful, provided that tablet has an efficient text entry system (and for a tablet that means HWR). It is flexible enough that most people won't even need a dedicated PIM and with the new connected features it has entered the "Cloud Era" as well.

There must be other such applications; I'm still thinking about LyX and its flexible screen display system and powerful typesetting background as a tablet alternative for the ubiquitous word processor); something like ArtRage2 that caters for the artistic tablet user (I'm not saying ArtRage2 should be ported, but a program that provides a subset of features would find eager customers)...