The embargo-phobic Michael Arrington, of TechCrunch fame, may have staged a “Crunchpad” leak to build buzz for his upcoming web tablet. I appreciate the economical and minimalistic hardware project goals. However, the relatively quaint notion of a single function Internet device may not fly in 2009. Those modern “netbook appropriate chipsets” enables so much more - why cripple restrict yourself to Firefox running in kiosk mode? Make it the default mode if you must, but how about also including Skype, IM, VNC, VLC, and photo organization software. Like a large number of phones and netbooks being offered at a similar $300 price point. He’s onto something with the larger (12″) screen (and kitchen counter stand), but my ideal couch-based computing device is much more than a browser. It’s also yet to be seen if Arrington’s assembled a team that’s prepared to handle the marketing, sales, and ongoing support (and related expenses) of a CE venture.
