You wouldn’t want to do this with a USB dongle for the reasons stated. However, some type of mini PCIe slot like they use in laptops would be along the lines that you’re thinking without the size problems.

Hardware: GPS *and* compass is highly desirable, and for sure HDMI output.

Makes way more sense IMO…

The retail price for 1GB of DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) laptop memory on a SODIMM is only $18 (quantity one, U.S. manufactured). That’s probably less than $10 more than the 256MB RAM in the gen8. Manufacturing cost is the same – you have to stick the chips on the board, whatever their capacity. For a $10/unit price differential on the bill of materials, I’d hope they make the right choice.

Sure, but the Huawei and ZTE designs are pretty similar, and I think they dominate about 90% of the 3G dongle market. Perhaps Archos thinks of the angle and space available in such smart way they can cover about 99% of the standard compact USB dongles. Most importantly, they have to make sure the design still allows the tablets to smoothly be slided in and out of pockets without this USB dongle getting stuck in any way. It’s just about the size of a pack of chewing gum that they have to find a way to fit in there smoothly.

Workable i theory, but usb dongles do not come in a uniform size or shape.

Sounds good! Hopefully they read this. There are lots of people demanding more RAM, hopefully 1GB is cost efficient by then. And that Apps space thing, I don’t know if Google has some kind of responsibility to build Honeycomb and further in some smarter way to take advantage not only of dedicated flash for app space but also put as much of it as possible on the regular storage.

But what if they add a second USB host that turns inwards so basically it slots in any USB modem dongle right behind the device, barely adding any bump underneath the device, maybe double as kind of a grip thus using that modem bump for something. Then they can simply ship the WiFi version and make the software compatible with any type of 3G dongle modem, and make sure to design it so that modem doesn’t stick out the side but nicely fits in behind or maybe even inside the device.

Hardware: 1GB RAM. 1GB apps space. More than two-finger multi-touch. Wider-angle screen. Open source compatible hardware, so no “binary blobs”.

Software: Root in the settings, so questionable/insecure hacks don’t have to be used. SSHFS and ENCFS support. Support for encrypted local filesystems (internal, SD, USB).

Customer Support: Online bug reporting and tracking system (e.g., Bugzilla) for increased transparency and communication.