funny that the foleo was mentioned as that was about the time I lost interest in 1src.com.
As far as that goes my n810 is so far past the abilities of my old Sony Clie that I am still amazed.
The fact that these devices can do all they do is amazing and I think that so many people here have lost sight of that.
And yes, the amount of money per month that is required to run an iPhone is rediculous for the party tricks it does!

Has anyone asked them though?

Also: Consider that, apart from video, the most reason people consider the current generation of tablets underpowered is BROWSING.

So why is Google convinced they're going to improve battery life by removing everything except the browser? He**, if that was true, I would have removed Notepad by now.

Hang on, I understand *I* am not the target audience but I *am* interested in the specifics, as I'm the guy friends, famility and coworkers ask for choices and I do want to give them the best option for THEIR uses. Chrome OS will be not be ASKED for, it will be GIVEN to it's users from what you say, and that's why more detailed info is needed for me not to consider it a variant of Knoppix Live with a G logo on it (with knoppix actually giving me the option to put up stuff from debian repos). The other issue is that those people often don't buy netbooks. Everybody survey says netbooks are more often secondary machines people already owning a desktop or a large notebook - are they wrong or has the user profile Google is aiming at yet to emerge ?

It is an option, I suppose, but I still don't see in what way it's a significantly better option than a stripped down Linux/*BSD/NT5.x system running a good web browser. I guess you save the overhead of X11; but unless you've got something a lot wimpier than an OQO, that's not really going to be a problem.

I guess every little bit helps, and since there are (currently, AFAIK) no full-featured browsers on svgalib or fbdev, the (presumably) fbdev-targeting Chromium build for this does look like a gain. But while that gains me a additional app to run in slackware or wherever, it in no way makes Chrome OS more compelling; I can still get all the gains with none of the downsides by pulling the browser out and dropping it in any fully capable OS. To me, while it does add an option, I can hardly see any use case where that option is an improvement.

It's just starting, the information won't be more concrete until first quarter 2010. As it stands, it's not even on my list of things I'd fully consider yet. But it's something that does exist to make certain companies - *cough* Intel, Nokia, Microsoft *cough* - rethink their offerings perhaps see that they're shooting a bit off in the wrong directions.

It might be a Knoppix clone. It might be just a wrapper around a browser. But as it stands, if it boots in less than a minute, gives people the ability to use their e-mail/browser/whatever quickly, it'll become an option if the need is there - and it is.

And as far as netbooks go, people buy them for portability and limited functions. The ability for it to book quicker than now, is a welcome thing. And for the Google OS to be browser based... duh. NETbook... how is that not seen as THE REASON people would use it?

Face it... at the risk of sounding like a fanboy of any of it, it's still an option in an area that needs better options. I dislike netbooks, went with a Nokia Internet Tablet only to get no damn support after a year of owning each one bought. I'd like to have something that will be supported a bit longer.

And if that makes me an infidel, so be it. I don't mind saying the unpopular stuff. But if Google comes out with something, it'll make people think twice about putting something out,then abandoning it so quickly - if Google's there, there might be a market afterall. Just like online ads... or searching... having more than one option is good for the customer.

This whole "Maemo" will deliver us to the promise land is utter BS. It's changed directions so many times in the past, it's changing directions in the near future, and what we know so far, I now get why Nokia doesn't disclose a lot. It looks like they're confused - which I hope that they are not.

JavaOS this is just an evolution of scope of Android; a thin client (embedded client) with Web 2.0 interfacing (or SaaS) with each thread isolated from each other (for security) interfacing with Google services where profit lies in support, profiling, and targeted advertising.

It will be build on tons of existing open source software and technology, and nothing stops Nokia making Maemo interface with Ovi. If Ovi is competitive with such service while hosted in EU instead of US that is a big plus for me. However, this opens door for collaboration on other fronts. Nothing stops Google contributing to existing (sub)projects of Maemo; e.g. FreeDesktop.org standards.

IOW, it is not big (its an evolution to existing process, and the outcome will determine its effect on market), and it does not compete with Microsoft Windows clients (yet) in the way some media tend to report because Microsoft Windows is targetted at different hardware (client-wise: desktops, workstations, laptops), has different purposes, and has a bigger software ecosystem. Perhaps it will compete a bit with some Windows thin clients, but anyone still using Windows for thin clients is burning a lot of money into nothingness.

What might be big or not is Google's contributions to the FOSS ecosystem. That I see as part of the effect/outcome. So, we will see.

Maemo, as released by Nokia for a Nokia device, is optimized for Nokia and for Nokia devices. That is just how Android is optimized for a certain device and mobile carrier. If Google also uses Linux as underlying basis, and does not use Android (pseudo Java) and instead uses many embedded Linux components they will need certain Linux software also used by Maemo and Moblin. So we might see collaboration then.

Even then, a netbook is a way to use the Internet. A smartphone is a way to use the Internet. A laptop is a way to use the Internet. Each device has their positive and negative aspects. And the software must be optimized for the advantages the hardware delivers (it is embedded; therefore many design decisions take place) and vice versa.

So it is not true that a 'netbook sucks' or 'smartphone is better than laptop'. All utter nonsense. It depends on how you are able to take advantage of the combination of software, hardware, and service provided by the end product. It is also not true there is no demand for both laptops, desktops, smartphones, netbooks, and so on because each device has its unique advantages in certain situations.

What will decide popularity and success is many things. Brand recognition (both Nokia and Google have this), time to market, stability and ease of use, word to word marketing. Not necessarily the best product becomes the most popular or defacto standard.

But Nokia does not look confused. They go on with making devices for specific purposes (Nokia phones) where hardware is optimized for specific markets. Meanwhile they open source Symbian and switch to Qt, while using Linux and open source ecosystems to build upon. They will continue to build many Nokia devices each made for specific purposes (optimization) but want to use underlying standards to make software ecosystem easier to manage and allow community support after device is EOL. So then users will be able to use a device like N95 (former flagship; still good device, but getting old) with up2date 3rd party firmware instead of stuck with older firmware. This increases customer satisfaction, and Nokia still sells their hardware becuae their hardware 1) is specialized 2) gets better.

Even though it will be open source, I'm guessing it will have targeted hardware or at least a compact list of compatible devices, because if stuff like WiFi, audio and suspend-to-RAM don't work immediately it will fail. Otherwise, it could be "real big" and the open source community will pick up the slack as usual. And after my parent's last virus call, I might finally have something that I would bother forcing on them.

I left the original distro that it came with in an unused partition and installed mandriva and it works really well, so it's not limited in function.

Suspend to ram works pretty well, resuming is a matter of seconds.
A full boot doesn't take that long either (88 seconds from flipping the switch to a fully booted kde4 desktop).