What could you feasibly use this for? The 1.2GHz CPU seems like it would put a bit of a damper on almost anything besides answering email and basic word processing.
Command-line java development (ecj, dx, git, etc) is practically instant. (If you need an activity-center IDE, you're gonna have a bad time.)
The only problems I've encountered are super javascript-heavy retail pages (Why do they do that? They can only restrict their audience. Interactivity needn't be heavy. Are they just using frameworks upon frameworks upon frameworks?)
And unfortunately, some Khan Academy graphical exercise. Strangely, "kalite" (offline version) works instantly, probably because it uses an older presentation - I bet it's "modern" frameworks again (though maybe because offline?).
The N800 specs were very modest compared to this stuff (something like 500Mhz and 256MB if I'm not mistaken). So, for command line stuff, most of the stuff you'd use 12 years ago would still be valid today. Stuff hasn't really changed that much. If anything, some things might run a bit faster than they used to on the same hardware due to ongoing optimizations and cumulative fixes. E.g. python has improved a lot since 2.5, which I think was current then. Compilers have gotten better, kernels have improved a lot, etc.
However, these days, a minimum requirement for most would be to be able to run a modern browser (i.e. with all the security holes patched) capable of browsing all popular websites. Unfortunately, that just requires a lot of memory and CPU these days. Websites have gotten a lot more complex in the last 12 years. I'd say memory is actually the biggest bottleneck here. Most laptops are effectively idling most of the time and grow extremely hot if you actually run them at 100% CPU. So a modern low power ARM SOC with enough memory suitable for e.g. a mid range smart phone of around 200$ should have everything you need for comfortable browsing.
The Lifebooks and the VAIOs were both so cool.
I wonder why people think it's OK that their daily use software is too big for a computer like this.
Sub $100 makes them close to disposable so you could have them scattered around a work site without much care for security or being careful to take good care of them. They could also be cheap enough for a classroom to afford that otherwise wouldn't be able to make any computing devices available.
A72 cores are moderately slower than intel. A53 cores are excessively slower than either A72 and intel.
You carry it with you when you travel somewhere and then dial back to your supercomputer for the heavy lifting.
Anything you can run on a Raspberry Pi you can get going on this - I largely use it as "a Raspberry Pi with a keyboard/screen/battery" - which it mostly does better than my PiTop (which has a vastly inferior screen and keyboard).