The bottom line is the labour cost, never mind the parts. Either you value your time or you don't, and if you value your time to you charge it out at more or less than Mr Gou's jumping employees? And, anyway, WTF does anyone think Dell are cheap in the first place? One of the great marketing triumphs of the past twenty years, that is.

As a Fujitsu reseller, I've shipped quite a few of their tablets over the years, both slate and convertible. We have a Primary school in Cornwall successfully using Stylistic slates with kids on a daily basis, but price has always been the issue. They have currently got a convertible thing called the Lifebook T1010, which is sub-£1000 (we're nearly at parity, aren't we...), but its battery life is crap and it lacks the modular bay of the T5010. Upcoming to launch alongside Win7, however, is a T4x10 range, which looks a lot better. Should be reasonably sub-£1k. As an alternative to the Sympodium, try the Interwrite iPanel. Cheaper, better and doesn't have nasty SMART software... And if anyone can tell me why the keyboard on my old Lifebook T3010 has died after I spilt a cup of tea on it...