Good enough AND lets you run for a silly amount of time on a single charge.

Amen. This weekend I installed Ubuntu on my pc (previously running Fedora 11) and Windows 7 on my girlfriend's pc. Both computers are modern but well-established, so the drivers should be very common. The results?
Ubuntu 9.10 needed to add one driver after installation for my nVidia graphics card, which the OS did automatically for me upon my first boot of the freshly-installed OS.
Windows 7 installed with NO drivers of any useful nature, providing me with a 16-colour, 800x600 display (on my 1440x900 monitor). I had to use another computer to find windows drivers for my LAN chip so that I could get the computer online to find the numerous drivers required to make it run normally.

In other words, Windows was frustrating to install because of driver issues, while Linux just worked. Oh how the tables have turned.

@nicholas.brown

Funny, I haven't had a hardware issue with Ubuntu or Fedora in about 4 releases (2 years or so). Compare that to my experiences installing XP, Vista, or more recently Win7, where I spend hours finding drivers from various CDs and websites for all the hardware components. In fact, my last two windows installs (1 vista, 1 win7) didn't even successfully add LAN support, so I had to use another computer to find the LAN driver, put it on a USB key, and install it on the new Windows machine before I could go online and find the other goodies like video, sound, and wifi drivers.
Something tells me that, if people can figure that out, they can figure out Google's OS (or Ubuntu for that matter).

@Dest,

Well-put. Though regarding lenovo, I'd suggest that Thinkpads are partially known for reliability, but their reputation also leans heavily on fair customer support and excellent durability (which is not the same as reliability).
Also, it could be that there's a big difference between a Thinkpad and another Lenovo laptop like an Ideapad, but I'm only throwing that out there as a possibility.

@Trickster

True, though one correction: Fido is Rogers. It's just a discount brand like Koodo is to Telus.

You're lucky. My TX1000-series died after 15 months...just outside of warranty. When I started researching the reason behind its sudden death, I found that the issue (second-rate southbridge chip that overheats and blows its solder points) was shockingly common. Same thing with my girlfriend's 15" compac, which just died again - for the second time - this morning believe it or not.

I'm well aware that all electronics have their issues, but the more I researched HP's notebook issues, the more blown away I was by the number of issues, the recurrence of issues over time and across models, and HP's complete lack of effort to resolve any of those issues.

@Brian, in fairness, he didn't say "Gaming" device. He said "entertainment" device. Devices like this and the Touch do a great job of balancing different forms of entertainment.

You miss one key point though. Those people in their 20s that don't get OpenOffice are having problems because of their relative familiarity to MS Office. The target of this type of product has no preconceived notions with any OS or software. Besides, UI has a lot more to do with ease of use than background processes.

I still maintain that if you take someone who has never used a computer before, give them two: one with Ubuntu and one with Windows, they will find relative ease in Ubuntu. Familiarity is not a synonym for ease of use, but rather a substitute.

Clearly Google is evil because you already had free WIFI at your local airport.

Design a computer this size that still has an optical drive, doesn't fall over when bumped (like Dell's last mini computer), and doesn't have a vaguely similar shape to a mac mini. Go ahead. Do it.

Just because Mac implemented the most pratical/logical form factor for the mini doesn't mean others are copying them by coming to the same conclusions.

On another note, Tesla copied GM by having four wheels and a driver's seat that faces forward. THOSE SCOUNDRALS!