Chris Norton wrote:
>PS>  Why the folding screen?  I guess I'd like a machine that is a bit
>larger than a paperback book, 1/2 cm deep.  That seems like a
comfortable size to me.  You could
>watch movies on it, read text on it (without
>squinting) and you could use it as a reasonable pen-based computing
environment.  At that size,
>it can be used to demonstrate applications to other people, without
having to do it one person 
>at a time.

This is why I mentioned the docking ability in the original post.  A PDA
will never be your primary computational device if the screen is only
2.5" x 3.5" and you can only use a pen...however, if it can change into
a tablet, notebook, or desktop system using a docking scheme (which
would also allow for docking in other devices), then I think it would
become many peoples' primary computational device.  I think this is the
next best thing until someone invents Chris' Star Trek like shape
shifting technology (actually, I've heard of some screens that are
almost as thin as paper and can be rolled up, but I think the technology
is still some years away).

I've gone through a couple of PDAs, and they inevitably get out of sync
with my primary computer (my notebook PC) and I end up abandoning them
(too much hassle keeping them up to date).  I probably won't buy another
one until it can serve as my primary computer.  So I'll wait until those
micro-drives get up around 100GB and the processors are running at
2gHz...will I be waiting a long time?  Probably so.

- Stephen