Also handwriting (with stylus) recognition.

I would buy it. This is essentially where all future portable devices should go in my opinion. Desktops in the office, laptops for power users and tablets for mobile computing. The iPhone has proved that touch interfaces can work.

I hope they can secure funding and partners to get this thing into production. I'd buy shares if I had the money

Hmph. This is so different from what I would want I don't know where to start. I would want a device I can use while doing things like waiting on line or riding mass transit. That means:
- nine inch screen or smaller, and a touch screen type that is stylus compatible so the onscreen keyboard can be smaller (and, fwiw, resizable). Small device size is crucial. So is absolutely minimal weight within cost constraints.
- easily swapped batteries or 3 + hr battery life (using AAs would be ideal since one can always pick up more on the road).
- somewhat water resistant so when, not if I put it down on dewy grass, I don't kill the device and using it outdoors on misty late nights isn't a problem either.
- looks inexpensive so I can use it anywhere and not have it get stolen.
- either very good WiFi antenna or connector to add supplementary antenna.
- A headphone jack.
A neoprene or equivalent outer case would be crucial but that's a classic “third party opportunity” unless they want to offer it as a twenty buck option to increase profits.

They've built a high tech device for use in nice, tidy offices or middle class homes. I would want a cheap, simple device to use while grabbing a 2:00 a.m. meal at a taco truck or while taking the subway. And not to be a jerk or anything, but I suspect that there are more people like me (graduate students, kids, working class folks who want to check their email at lunch, activists, gardeners) who are currently unaddressed by the market then there are people looking for yet another “cool” tablet of the sort Tech Crunch is building. The LARPer/paintball crowd alone would buy enough of them to justify such a device.

Netbooks are toys in comparison to this.

I don't like seeing him take his hand off the device to scroll. A scroll wheel or pad, even a rocker switch on the bezel might help, unless they make the software scroll bar wider.

Curiously, they don't play any of the videos full-screen. (In fact, they have a 2nd prototype video where he hits the fullscreen option on Hulu, it pops up, and then they instantly cut to a new scene. No explanation. That's super fishy.) They seem to stutter as is, though that might be hammered out.

They mention the monitor port is only there because it's a prototype, but taking out the monitor-out port would make hacking it harder. Leaving it in, maybe even behind a panel if Arrington doesn't want to scare people with it, doesn't hurt anything.

I do think $300 is good for a 12″ fully-featured touchscreen computer, but if he wants a closed system that won't do anything but browse, it gets beaten by $300 10″ netbooks and $250 9″ers.

$299 won't even afford me a Eee PC 701 here in Japan (depending on what shops you go to). This is cheap in my opinion (as a non-American). Hell I'd get one…

They did this before, Anyone Remember the Epods One tablet, it ran on windows ce, was set up pretty much to just browse.

That idea went down the toilet fairly fast.

Hunt and peck: Does not have to be that way. The virtual keyboard could be resizeable, for example, so that it fits my fingers perfectly.

Less is more, so I think the CrunchPad wins overall, if it can be made to look sexy, that is.

There are a couple of native apps I would miss, but not many, and I can live without them. Bear in mind, the person who would buy is falls into one of two categories: (1) The family has other computers already. (2) The person who does nothing besides use web resources, e.g. my retired mom.

I hope they can secure funding and partners to get this thing into production. I’d buy shares if I had the money