Gnome was exploring touch too. For my use case, though, a window manager is superfluous, as I'd use this machine as my portable emacs. At 150 bucks it's way cheaper than any other option. All I need is Emacs and Firefox anyway.

Which $150 machine are you talking about?

If all you want is a portable emacs, why not just get a bluetooth keyboard and use your phone or buy one of those $50 Kindle tablets?

Oh I've looked at sth else's price on the page, sorry :)