I can’t remember where this came from, but I’ve always viewed design as a three-part effort, one that addresses “Utility” (pure functionality), “Usability” (how easy it is to get things done), and “Desirability” (how much we like it).

I beleive that the optimal combination of all three together would hopefully create the conditions that would more likely yield a good experience. I don’t know if I agree with your point that you can’t have both. Things are different, but I don’t believe that we have to sacrifice desirability for something to be useful or usable.

I’ve had some great experiences on some very nice beautiful country roads that are straight, flat and clear of other vehicles.

Here are a couple things to keep in mind:

The keyboard is small, even for my small hands.

It is a branch off of Ubuntu’s distro so bug fixes and updates will not come nearly as quickly.

I had to hunt for a fix for a quirk where you cannot ssh to another computer when connected to a wireless network (everything is OK now).

- dan