Based on orders and production numbers reported by Digitimes, it looks like the holidays are going to be… portable. Snapdragon and Tegra units are expected from a bunch of major OEMs, though it’s far from established that you can make a decent device out of them above a PMP or phone. 8.9-inch “smartbooks” powered by Tegra? Come on. The market doesn’t need this much fragmentation.
I really have no idea whether the sub-netbook species can carve out a spot in the laptop taxonomy. Netbooks have certainly proven themselves, but they’re still small potatoes compared to regular laptop sales, and I’m guessing smartbooks will be small potatoes compared with netbook sales. All well, more choice is usually good, but people are having trouble parsing the different price points and capabilities that are out there already.