Maybe so. Judging from what's available at Dynamism.com, most MIDs are hand sized but not pocket sized. Dynamism includes some devices that other people might call UMPCs. Obviously, our NITs are smaller but I still say they are too big. I want to take my N800 with me all of the time but it doesn't fit into all of my pants pockets. If I'm wearing tight jeans, I have to bring along a napsack or messenger bag or a jacket if I want my N800, whereas my dumb Motorola V195s flip phone fits in any pants pocket. I could try slipping the N800 into my hip pocket but then I have to worry about breaking the screen when I sit down.

For price, the MIDs at Dynamism start at $599 and go up to $2199. Even allowing for the Dynamism early-adopter premium, that's a lot of money! When the N800 first came out, it was about $399, which is at the low end of the prices for MIDs. However, people know that they can buy a netbook or a low end laptop for that price and that makes the MID seem expensive.

People like us are used to fiddling with our toys. When I got my N800, I really believed that it was Ready For Prime Time (TM), that I could give it to my 80-year-old father and he would be able to use it and it would always work for him. I was almost right. There are little things that would bug my Dad. He wouldn't have the patience for the web browser when it encounters a web site that doesn't like it (Facebook, I'm talking about you). He probably wouldn't like having to download Pidgin because the built-in IM client only works with XMPP-based services like Google Talk. He certainly wouldn't have the patience to install RTComm beta. He'd get fed up with metalayer crawler sucking up the CPU whenever it wanted to. You all would generously offer to help him if he found his way here and we'd both be grateful for that but a consumer device ought to work without a support group. Now, to be fair to the NITs, Dad would like a lot of the applications that we have and he'd probably try a bunch of them. He'd love AisleRot Solitaire.

I might concede the point about battery life. If you leave the N800 in offline mode, the battery lasts for days. Once you turn on the WIFI, the battery has only hours. Compare that to most mobile phones. You can leave the things on for days and talk for eight or more hours. MIDs have to compete with that. MIDs need all-day WIFI.

DIGITIMES a different opinion of why MIDs are failing. It blames the economy and 3G.