A lot of us have high-end mobile phones which have high MSRP subsidized to a great deal of its original price by service providers (such as AT&T, Vodafone, etc.) after signing a time-bound contract for using their serivice. Some variants of ASUS Eee PC and other competing brands are equipped with 3G High Speed Down/Uplink Packet Access (HSDPA) connectivity, which allows service providers to provide internet connectivity among other features. This means a good venture for them since they could sign you on a service contract and sell you these ultra-portable notebooks at subsidized prices a-là mobile phones. ECS is already in the process of signing partnerships with several service providers in Europe.

With these notebooks falling in the same price-band as mid-high end mobile phones, PDAs, etc., internet connectivity, PC-style, is more affordable than ever before.

In between a smartphone and a laptop, Palm's new Foleo offers a nearly full sized keyboard, 10 inch display and comes with a word processor and spreadsheet. Unveiled on May 30th at the 'All Things D:' conference, Palm's founder Jeff Hawkins says it is most useful when combined with a smartphone. The Foleo runs on Linux, supports Bluetooth, WiFi and uses Opera as its browser.