I really think the "flip up LCD" is becoming the best idea. At the end of the day, the current Efika case design with barely a 2cm extra height when the panel is folded *is* portable, and still useful. It does restrict us on case size to an 7" or 8" panel (8" panels I find tend to be 1cm too big for the top of the case although we could make a new case that simply has more room - this would be required for a battery anyway), which gives us a maximum resolution of around 800x480 or 800x600;
http://www.industrialcontroldesignline.com/products/196900049
http://www.osddisplays.com/tft.php
The prices on these seem fairly reasonable, too.
I don't personally think 800x480 is really that bad a resolution. Perhaps not good for checking emails at 30 feet, but for sitting on a desk and with focus on portability (and user interface design for portable apps
would be customisable) I think it works. It is not perfect but having bigger screens means less portability.
Slim the board down, make it a single USB connector high, and integrate the panel without the flip up, and you have one of these;
http://www.pioneercomputers.com.au/products/products.asp?c1=3&c2=108 (Microsoft UMPC)
And after all, none of these could be considered "difficult to use" with a small screen.
Integrate the flip stand from the suitcase imac design back into the design and it can just sit on a desk. I think it is rolling in the right direction this way with a viable product on the route to the completed device, whereas the lumpy suitcase imac with a 14" screen is probably a little.. bulky.
Portability should not just be the ability to carry one around yourself but perhaps fit 20 of them in a flight case for shipping around the world.
The forum post about the dual-CF adapter intrigued me. I wonder if this really works. The product seems only to have been released very recently.. It would be a major space saving to be able to have a couple of flash drives in there (perhaps one microdrive and one flash, or a scratch flash, with a read-only flash for the OS?).. and keep the space down.