Russell Allen writes:
> As far as I can tell this requires a wall power socket to work, and so
> isn't actually a 'handheld' in the sense I originally thought.  Does
> anyone else know about this?

You're correct - it's not a handheld, but rather an Internet Appliance, like
the Netpliance iOpener (killed about a year ago), the Sony eVilla (killed
about a month ago), Intel dotStation (killed about 3 months ago) and a few
others (all killed except for the Compaq/MSN device and Ellison's New
Internet Computer).  They were intended to be cheap, instant-on,
non-Microsoft devices for access to email and web browsing primarily, though
some included MP3 playback, and various other things, and were designed for
use in the den or kitchen rather than the home office.

There are a few reasons why these products have thus far failed.  First, the
use of LCD displays drove the price up to comparable with PCs, which meant
the price had to be subsidized. Typically this involved some sort of
three-year ISP deal, and a "walled garden" type access to content (ie, make
if difficult to see content not controlled by the ISP) in order to extract
more money from the user through ecommerce and subscriptions.  Another issue
with these devices is the second-class nature of the Internet experience -
the browsers didn't work everywhere, and many third-party plugins didn't
work.

Probably the most important factor was the averall decline in the price of
full featured PCs and the glut of unsold built PCs filling up warehouses.
As the post-Internet economy has worsened and people see little reason to
upgrade their machines, the OEMs have been struggling to sell computers, let
alone machines that come with such complicated conditions on their use.

-- Duane