The ultra-low-cost, ultra-mobile computer category has a few other players — Fourier Systems, Intel and One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) — that are sold through limited channels. All have the clamshell bodies, small displays, low weights and mobility features that make them marvels of value. And no doubt, we’ll be seeing new models coming out from other major players in the next few months.

As one person I spoke to recently explained, these are amazing computers that encourage you to experiment. If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Windows and Microsoft Office productivity suite user, here’s your chance to spend a few hundred dollars to get a “disposable computer” that runs Linux and expects you to rely on open source and online offerings for your primary applications (though that’s hardly a requirement).

If most of your computer time is spent doing serious work, an ultra-portable could be your excuse to cut free from the tethers of a desktop and stash a lightweight machine into your rucksack for blogging, posting photos, and recording your summertime daydreams. Yes, these things can probably be done on your cellphone too, if you have the right kind; but that’s kind of like keeping your journal on a pad of sticky notes. It’ll do the job, but just not as well as another kind of tool. And trust me on this one: There’s a cool factor with these devices. You’ll have the device everybody else around you will want to hold for themselves.