[Off Topic] Creative Hardware Question

[Dan Hugo <dhugo@reallycool.com>]

It's late, and I have a meeting in something like 7 hours to talk about
this subject, so I thought I might post a question here to see what my
fellow Debian users think.

Given the WebPad from Cyrix
(http://www.cyrix.com/html/emerging/index.htm), the Netwinder from Corel
(http://www.corelcomputer.com/  and http://www.netwinder.org/ ) and some
other interesting hardware and pro-Linux "stuff" out there:

What would make a near-perfect mobil/palm-top/mini/whatever Linux
device?

For example

12.1" Reflective AMLCD
Resistive touch screen (the reflective would make this hard, but...)
StrongARM processor
32 Meg memory
wireless ethernet
PCMCIA support ?
Audio
IR Port?
USB (eventually...)
*
*
*
(note lack of keyboard, mouse, hard drive, CD-ROM drive, etc etc... in
this EXAMPLE)

Would it be a standalone device?
An X terminal?
Some other form of graphic terminal?

Would battery life win out over performance?
Weight over size?

Is a backlight important (as opposed to reflective) ?

Does it need a drive of some sort?  Would a CD-ROM/CD-R/CD-RW suffice
(assuming some network connectivity) ?


So, basically, I am wondering what a Debian Linux user would want in
such a device, if such a device would be desirable at all.

(I really do have a meeting about something along these lines in 7
hours, but I am posing the question for some projects we have coming up
soon...)

Thanks for any thoughts, ideas, suggestions, and non-flames...

Dan Hugo


ps I work for none of the companies I mentioned above, and this meeting
is with no one from any of those companies.