There was an article these days about how companies are starting to wish for the other face of Moore's law: computers getting cheaper every year at the same performance. The article was about the next Windows, but I always thought it applies much better to laptops.

I'd say there are three levels of performance suitable for such mini-machines:

- The equivalent of the last 486 or the first pentiums: can play mp3, browse the web (without the bells and whistles), display a pdf, run simple office applications, have ethernet and usb, may not have wireless. This is what a real $100 laptop should be like, and what readers could become (keyboard?)

- Can show movies, run a contemporary OS and application suite (including last versions of Open/Microsoft Office) - pretty much everything an office computers does, without the games and other needy apps. This is already covered, as there are many cheap laptops just like this.

- Sub $100 laptops. This is a very interesting field, because anything can be done. Text-only and monochrome displays, dedicated applications, the field is huge and the prices can be as low as any hand-held chinese game ($10 is not at all absurd). There are two big issues here: compatibility and net connectivity. I don't know what an USB or Ethernet chip goes for, but it it's $2 it's too much.