[kingu]

'Netbooks will become the almost exclusive domain of Linux and derivative products, and will never be home to Windows.' -- this was the pronouncement as Asus sold 350,000 Linux based notebooks in a three month experiment. Two days later, Asus announced a Windows XP option, which then became the dominate OS for their notebooks until Windows 7 came out.

It is completely within the realm of reason that Windows 7 will be featured in a number of the upcoming digital pads - while RIM, Chrome OS, Android and the iPhone OS fight to gobble up as much of the smartphone market as possible.

Truthfully, I think Android's getting the leg up, with the incorporation of mobile hotspot into the standard Android build. After all, do you want to pay another $25 a month to have your whateverpad connected to the net when you're already paying for your smartphone's dataplan? And what about your wifi Zune or other wifi MP3 player, plus your wifi enabled GPS would really like to download traffic information, etc.

I'm much more on the bleeding edge, as I do have the mobile hotspot on my phone, connected to my laptop and mp3 player, as well as my GPS. I'd say toss in a pad type computer, but really, I can browse the web on my phone, mp3 player and my netbook, why would I need a much more limited and costly touchscreen pad there to be something more to lug around.

I've considered, however, replacing my current netbook with a convertible tablet netbook. Prices keep dropping, so who knows.

[aft_lizard]

The problem with any Linux distro, Android included, is fragmentation. That is one uses version x while another uses version y, another uses a different distro etc. Then of course there is the platform differences(x86, ARM...) etc. It becomes very convoluted and hard to keep up with.

[antiRepublicrat]

It is completely within the realm of reason that Windows 7 will be featured in a number of the upcoming digital pads

I don't think so. HP had one planned, and Microsoft did, too. Then they were dumped when the iPad took off. They realized that a consumer tablet is no place for a desktop OS with touch or pen tacked on, and that's a big reason while previous attempts failed in the market.

No, the consumers have decided that a tablet should have a simple handheld OS. It's quite possible there will be a Windows Phone 7 tablet. However, the OS will be far behind the competition even when it is finally released.

I can browse the web on my phone, mp3 player and my netbook, why would I need a much more limited and costly touchscreen pad there to be something more to lug around.

Consolidate. I'd use the phone for calls and music, and the tablet would replace the netbook for surfing, email and watching movies (all things that benefit from a larger screen).