Link via NYTimes.com

The cellphone-chip makers argue that the ARM-Linux combination is just fine for a computer meant to handle e-mail, Facebook, streaming video from sites like YouTube and Hulu, and Web-based documents.

Freescale, for example, gave free netbooks to a group of 14- to 20-year-olds and watched what happened. “They would use it for Internet access when eating breakfast or on the couch, or bring it to class for taking notes,” said Glen Burchers, the director of consumer products marketing at Freescale.

ARM-Linux will be cheap with low power utilization, but the Dell Mini 9N I just bought cost only $199 with an Intel Atom chip – that’s cheaper than my iPod Touch 8Gb. It also looks like Nvidia is also in the game with their Tegra platform. There will be some really interesting form factors and value propositions for netbooks by the end of this year. I’m sure Apple has something up their sleeve especially since many of the most popular netbooks have already been turned into hackintoshes.