You never know what tomorrow will bring.

The idea of Intel Atom doesn't seem brand new to me. AMD has Geode and VIA has C7, both are x86 compatible and somewhat mobile and power efficient. Thare are not that many good products with Geode or C7.

Whether MIDs will be any goods depends on many factors we cannot forsee now and all of them are compromises: battery time vs CPU speed / RAM size vs display size vs price. A big factor is software, full-blown Windows or Linux Desktop is OK for those who want to substitute a notebook, but those full-OS-on-small-hardware-devices will always appear inferior compared to real notebooks, iPhones, NITs. A great product probably needs optimized software like Nokia's Maemo or Asus/Xandros EEE.

If you like the form factor of the N8x0 and the available applications, go for it. It seems unlikly someone makes something better at the same size and price. If you'd liked to have something bigger, that's a different story.