TechCrunch has come up with a nice idea -- an internet tablet that is razer thin, with low-end specs, nice designed, and last but not the least, an affordable price-tag. The Web Tablet, currently dubbed as the Firefox Tablet is a dream of TechCrunch's founder Michael Arrington. The basic thought behind this machine is that it must be a "dead simple and dirt cheap" touch screen web tablet to surf the web. When your sole intention is to surf web then you don't need a fancy Dell latitude XT or such tablets which sells for about $2,500. A thin touch screen tablet based on modified Linux is more than enough to run Firefox and possibly Skype. All this is fine, but what's TechCrunch got to do with this? Well, as such machine doesn't exist today, they want to design it, build a few and then open source the specs so anyone can create them.

According to TechCrunch, such a machine will also feature a single button for powering it on and off, headphone jacks, a built in camera for video, low end speakers, a microphone, Wi-Fi, one USB port, a built in battery, 512MB of RAM, 4GB solid state disk, and an iPhone-like touch screen keyboard.

On paper it looks really attractive, but I doubt it is feasible. Just think, do you really want to spend $200 on a machine that is good only for reading blog posts? Also, where will you use it? Certainly not in office. Yes, it could be used at your home, but don't you already have an ultraportable notebook computer? The only place where it can be used is your bed and couch. It would be great to use such light-weight, thin machine to surf net while lieing on comfortable couch or bed. Sounds good, no? But only if you're willing to cough-up $200 for such a fantasy.

[TechCrunch]