Reader Bob Kawaratani informed us that HP has released the Mini-Note for sale in Japan and at pricing competitive with the US pricing.  The high-end model with 2 GB of RAM, 160 GB hard drive and Vista Basic can be purchased for the equivalent of less than $800 and the low-end configuration with Vista for less than $600.  This should wake up Japanese OEMs like Sony, Fujitsu, Toshiba and the like as HP is hitting them on their home turf.