The extent to which they lock it down and make a Canonical Store the sole vehicle for loading QML app$ onto the device will determine its appeal.

As long as it's a standard ARM-based distro that one can run, say, GIMP and emacs under E17 (via external inputs and display) then everyone should be happy. But if it's akin to Windows RT, where only store-purchased apps can run then it's appeal is limited.

Plasma Active, Nemo, Cordia HD etc are all just touch screen environments running on top of the ruins of Meego.

There's nothing stopping anyone repackaging those rpms as debs. Which is probably Canonical's starting point, plus a Unity skin.

As for hardware, aren't they using the Google Nexus devices for developer images, i.e. Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4 for phones and Nexus 7 for tablets?

The preview release has nothing to do with high or low end. The Nexus 4 devices have community support through AOSP and are targets for community development such as replicant and freedreno. It's a hacker phone, a shipping product that provides a base platform on actual hardware. Such that first-world nerds such the average Slashdotter might possibly own and thereby try out Ubuntu and contribute to the ecosystem.

By targeting the Nexus 4, they support one of the more popular SoCs in Snapdragon. Coincidentally, Snapdragons are found in the both the developer phones that Geeksphone are producing for Firefox OS, neither of which are super high end by flagship Samsung/HTC/Apple standards.

Current figures (greater melbourne, wikipedia) have more than 4miliion.

Your definition of the city of Melbourne extending only to 10 km is moot as a fair number of people commute each day along suburban train lines, a number of which in the E/SE extend beyond 35km from the CBD. And not just workers heading into the city - Try studying at La Trobe or Monash unis by a combination of bus, tram or train and see how long one's cross-town journey takes...

By car, there are peak hour traffic jams - despite succesive state governments building freeways in every direction...

I don't know what size your screen is but a portrait A4 sheet of paper doesn't fit on *my* 1920Ã--1080 monitor.

A4 is about 29.7 cm long. On my 21.5" 1080 widescreen monitor, that's about 27 cm high. So that's nearly 3cm short. Subtracting the OS task bar, window decorations, menubar, toolbar, footer etc of my PDF reader and there's a miniscule 22.7cm of actual viewable area to display the actual page. So on my screen, an A4 page renders at 76%

So a 'big monitor' in 16:9 widescreen isn't that big... That's why we read them fullscreen, or rotated to portrait mode. Your experience may differ, according to the aspect ratio.

Single-column PDFs and Word documents are invariably formatted for Portrait and yet the majority of displays are Landscape-only.

If governments were truly conscious of 'saving a tree', they'd mandate use of pivotable monitors.

Caveat emptor re linux support for USB adapters. I needed a solution in a hurry from the local electronics store for a Windows 7 laptop but unsurprisingly drivers were lacking for Ubuntu.

Which is kind of a shame when today's Android smartphones include USB OTG support, e.g. for plugging in external displays. Perhaps I'll learn some C and hack together a driver by 2015!

For programming? Writing code *is* a desk-bound activity. Or occupying a table at your local Starbucks cafeteria, if you prefer a hipster-coffee analogy. :)

What about your neck? How is gazing at a 50 inch TV in the distance while glancing down at a mouse and keyboard good ergonomics?

Well unless the submitter is planning on developing iOS/OS X software, perhaps you missed the point about "trying to keep the cost down reasonable" ?

I'm glad someone else gets it - many tasks are suited to length rather than width. Whenever a company supplied me with 'pivotable' monitors, I used to get strange looks in the office, even from supposed techies, about why one of my monitors was rotated pi/2.

Monitors that come with a pivotable base aren't the norm, so perhaps it's worth investing in one of those dual vesa mounts that clamp to one's desk. They're typically adjustable for a variety of angles.

Monkey, great sage, the equal of heaven.

The 'real' GB includes England, Wales and Scotland. But politically, 'UK' is the correct term when including the region around Belfast.

And because it has that pesky locked bootloader, enterprising young Russian students (see yesterday) can't even port ReactOS for ARM to the cursed thing! :)

I thought your Carribean neighbours had a great climate for sugar cane?? :-)

Drop the embargo and you'll reboot the Cuban economy, most of whose sugar mills have turned to rust since the Soviets checked out. Keeping the blockade only entrenches the Castro brothers' reign and condemns the great-grandchildren of the revolution (50+ years of embargo and counting) to poverty and the whims of Venezuela's Chavez.