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News flash: tablets were around long before Apple. What would expect a "tablet" to look like? A tire iron?

To add insult to injury, Samsung had tablets before Apple made an iPhone, let alone iPad. How do I know? I own one for many years; it's a bit slow today but is more functional than the Galaxy Tab (which I also have and use.) As you can see in the photo, the Q1 had rounded corners.

Precisely.

I wonder what explanation Apple's engineers have for the laptops that spontaneously smoked & sizzled? I think it's clear the flaw lies in the Lithium battery not the user, and Apple should simply SAY that rather than deny it. Like so: "Dell recently started it's corporate blog called dellone2one.com. One of posts is dedicated to Dell's infamous "flaming notebook" from Osaka. Dell thinks that it was a fault in a lithium ion battery cell, which caused laptop to burn.

"Dell's engineering teams are working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission and a third-party failure analysis lab to determine the root cause of this failure and to ensure we take all appropriate measures to help prevent a recurrence", says post. LINK: http://laptoping.com/wp-content/flaming_laptop.jpg LINK: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/laptops/sony-beancounters-tremble-as-own-vaio-batteries-come-home-to-roost-208031.php LINK: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/laptops/gizmodo-reader-witnesses-ibm-laptop-catch-fire-at-lax-201115.php

I'm glad all my laptops use NiMH, since it's been around quite a big longer (almost 20 years) and the bugs have been removed. I'm sure Lithium batteries will be a great product to own... circa 2020.

Actually, according to this benchmark, the atom bests the 1.13ghz pentium 3 (tualatin), and is 62% of the 2.4ghz pentium 4. Assuming that the pentium 4 performance scales linearly (which it doesn't, not really) with clock speed, this would give it the performance of about a 1.5ghz p4.

http://laptoping.com/category/barebone-laptops/

The market is not as diverse as that of desktops, and you are limited by more factors, but can most certainly build your own laptop.

See barebones laptops. You can build your own laptop. It's not as easy as building your own desktop due to the size limitations and the built-in monitor, but you can build your own laptop.

KDE
http://arstechnica.com/news.media/kde41a1themes.png

OS X:
http://laptoping.com/wp-content/mac_os_x_leopard_screenshot.jpg

Flame away about being 'shallow' and talk of 'eye candy' but how the hell can anyone expect average computer users to want to migrate to Linux when the desktop looks like a hobbyist Windows knockoff.

I know it's slick to hype the Eee PC, but it's about 6+ months late to this party...

You should try googling around with "barebone" and "laptop" keywords.
(you could try also "odm" or "original design manufacturer". You can also try using ODM names :"Quanta", "Compal", "Wistron", "Inventec", "ASUS", "Uniwill", "FIC", "Arima", "Mitec", "MSI", etc...)
Specialy ASUS and MSI often sell barebones.

You should land on website selling non-brand barebones, and the corresponding pieces you need (Pentium M, Core Mobile, Turion, So-DIMM RAM, 2.5" HD, etc...)

You may also try looking on websites dedicated to running Linux on laptops, because in that situation, the actual design (and therefor the ODM) are much more important than the brand written on the hardware. They usually have lists of ODM (and corresponding OEM that brand and sell them). You could subsequently google for shops selling those brands.

Or, you can go crazy and built it yourself from ground up using lowpower ITX mainboards. But you'll have some difficulties building a good battery/charger, so I won't recommend that route.

Site found with google with photo : http://www.directron.com/laptopdiy.html
Site with a list of manufacturer : http://www.laptopworldwide.com/laptops.html
Site found through google with reviews : http://laptoping.com/category/barebone-laptops/
Seller found with google : http://www.xoticpc.com/index.php/cPath/95_51_174

Another solution would be to ask your usual low-cost DIY shops to see if they can order it thru their channels : they'll charge you a little bit more, but on the other hand you won't have to pay for the shipping and handling (the reseller will bring new stock to the shop anyway, regardless of if you made an ordered).