The navigation pad is utterly silly.
The screen is too small.
The Samsung i780 is out.

2500$?
Well that's quite nicely priced since this is the average price of the *entry level* Macbook Air here in Old Europe.

OQO Model 02: Same here, but on the software side, not hardware. I've had various drivers issues on Win XP Pro SP2, something that should have been ironed out before the unit was on the market. They also have sub-par Linux support (ie: None officially. Ubuntu runs but it takes up to 5 minutes upon resume just to detect the mouse and keyboard). In short it is an expensive toy and nothing more, since you cannot *trust* it.

To get back on topic, when I first heard the rumor about an HP UMPC, I was really expecting HP to go after OQO in the "biggish-PDA-sized" category, instead of this odd "too big for your pocket, too small for your bag" form factor that already has many contenders.
Ho, well, in 2009 maybe...

Sorry, but that just shows you don't know what design actually is. The Thinkpad designers are probably the 'rivals' the Apple design team respects the most. They're highly regarded in the industry and have pulled a number of 'first'. I am of course talking about *designing* an extremely complex piece of machinery that a notebook is.

But since you're talking about *aesthetics*, you'd like to know that this part has also been thought out: it is reminiscent of a bento box, small, black and as minimalistic as possible. That means thinkpads are never a fashion statement (which also means they don't have embarrassing shiny shells and huge advertisement-style logos), but that also means they never look outdated (which is definitely not the case with older powerbooks, mind you).

Besides, do you know of many notebooks that end up at the Museum of Modern Art?

Ummm, it'll run Linux perfectly.

Same (good old) minimalist box, same (good old) OS-agnostic smell. Only with top-notch technology updates.

What a nice piece of industrial design.

Sorry no, I was there only on Monday & Tuesday, like your run-of-the-mill company stooge. But as I said both models are accessible on i-mate's booth, so I would be surprised if no one did a hands-on preview by the end of the week (*WINK*WINK* Hey, what do you think, Engadget Staff? *WINK*WINK*)...

i-mate have both models on display at their 3GSM booth. They are functional and you can try them out by yourself, by the way, so they're not exactly vaporware. Of course you won't be able to test stability, battery life and the GSM or GPS connection, but you will see that the build quality and overall speed are quite good (the keyboard is really good on both models). Since they let anyone toy with these, I would guess they're pretty sure nothing will look bad and thus that the release date is fairly close (barring any supply problem, of course).

Actually they have two persons on their booth demoing the thing, and it DOES look pretty awesome. I'm talking about the hardware. They refuse to demo apps on it, they admit they're too buggy and not ready yet (even for a demo where they wouldn't let you handle the phone even one second). And their "Xperia UI" is nothing more than a glorified Today screen from what I've seen: the fancy stuff you see on the pictures are just shortcuts to different screens (custom Home/Today screens mostly, it seemed), but beyond that you'll fall back onto the default WinMob UI pretty quickly.
All in all I can't wait for HTC to release their own version. Heh.

They don't make the OS per se, they provide an API on top of the Linux kernel. But yes their software is used, amongst others, in the Sharp Zaurus line, the Openmoko Linux phone, as well as Motorola EZX Linux-phones series (if not their entire Linux phones line).
I guess Motorola must be really, really happy right now.

Actually most EZX phones (that's the name of Motorola's Linux touchscreen series) end up with their UI/API more or less cracked, up to (but not including) the A1200/E6. Due to the proprietary GSM/Bluetooth stacks, dev end up being more of a few hacks than anything else, but you can install OPIE on an E680i for example.
There is also an ongoing effort to make a specific "EZX Linux" open-source distro (http://openezx.org), much like these Linux distro on HTC phones.

As a side-note, the EZX series is at last expanding beyond the Asian market, as the A1200e will be released in Europe during Q1 2008.