In a closed room, a PS3 turned on for a while works almost as well as a space heater
Yeah, I was having a lot of problems with that - the fans kick in and roar like an engine (DVD play back seems to trigger it pretty quickly). Fixed it by balancing it on 4 empty beer cans. No joke - works like a charm - only side effect is that the beer cans get slightly warm...
TomTom don't have a Linux client either, but their hardware runs on Linux. There's no Kindle for Linux either, and yet the hardware Kindle runs on Linux.
Those to me seem odder than the netflix and google cases.
Don't think they need to be *that* powerful to do what most people need - certainly not in order to cater for the suggested needs of the OP here. But agreed, not completely there yet.
There's nothing stopping anyone manufacturing a docking device which holds a portable device and extends it with keyboard, mouse and displaying on a decent sized monitor. The difference is that you're free to use it in other ways too.
No man is an island if he's on at least one mailing list.