One answer is to design a cheap, all-in-one PC with low-cost Atom at its heart. Say hi to the Shuttle X50 all-in-one PC.
As the name suggests, an entire PC is contained just behind the 15.6in touchscreen that will ship with a native 1,366x768 resolution.
Shuttle was keen to stress that it was a prototype and the mass-production model would be ready in March, so I'll excuse the fact that the touch capability, with stylus or finger, was nowhere near as refined as HP's IQ series, especially the on-screen keyboard function. You could, of course, use a regular keyboard and mouse.
The slim design does without an optical drive but has most of the other ports you'd expect from a PC.
An external power-brick, rated to 60W, plugs into an awkwardly-placed socket on the left-hand side.
Cleverly, the stand can be pulled up and used to carry or mount the X50, and an HD15-out port means that the display can be pushed to a larger monitor.
Shipping with an 80GB mechanical drive, 945GC chipset, 1GB RAM, Shuttle hopes to market it at less than $499.
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