Even if it were true that very few general use applications take advantage of multiple cores, the average user is running more than one application. For example, I looked at a system a friend was running and she had Windows 7 and Norton AV on a Celeron 900. She typically does Office applications and runs a browser at the same time. Compared to her old system its pretty snappy, but it still isn't anywhere near as decent.

Don't think of it as Sams being slow. Think of them as giving Internet Explorer a chance to at least partially support CSS before the book ships.

Don't need a study. Just go look up various processor reviews on various sites (Toms Hardware springs to minde) and you'll see quite a difference between power usage of a CPU idling and one under load. Last time I tested my system, I had roughly a 40 to 60 watt difference between idling and running a demanding application. And that was on a budget dual core processor.

Aren't they stretching things calling this a laptop? Certainly its portable but it can't be easy to port this. I've had Sun monitors that weighed less than this. No way I'd be putting this on my lap. It isn't battery powered either. Some additional information is at this site with some additional information and pictures - http://www.pdp8.net/asr33/asr33.shtml