I'm all in on this one...i'm not a gamer so high end specs aren't really my thing...but i live in the land of power outages...and actually like Ubuntu. A water proof version for only 50 dollars more? yep, i'm in there too.

I like the option of using another operating system. I think it is cool - in a geeky sort of way - and very green. The price gives it a competitive edge too.
I think it could be also be used by campers since the places one goes to does not always have power. It could be good for situations where all power is out; ie Hurrican Sandy on the east coast or Katrina in Louisiana.

a standalone panel for other laptops/tablets would be nice too

I wonder how heavy the laptop is, and how rugged the solar panel is too? Could the solar panel be hooked on to a rucksack, and thus will the panel be waterproof too? Perhaps like the Nomad (Goal Zero) solar panel...
Good idea...

This is just a pipe - dream. I wish it luck! (especially at that price..)

I would be interested in the SOL marine. But I could care less about the silly solar panels. I assume they are just doing this to get attention. I think anyone with average intelligence will know that powering a computer with the sun is just silly. Based on the picture you might get 5-10 watts of power from that massive heavy, fragile, and expensive PV array. It would be nice if they made a good crank or perhaps a petal generator. What ever happened to the various micro fuel cells we kept hearing about???

I like the SOL Marine.

This is really cool for a forest dweller like me. I can't wait to get my hands on it. I believe it is developed through crowd funding too. Crowd funding, and crowd sourcing: True to the spirit of "Ubuntu "

Nice approach, and maybe useful at times. I know some people working in developing countries, and they could sure benefit from using one of these.
On the other hand, it takes less than half an hour to install Ubuntu on your average laptop (I already did that), and It would be quite simple to add a folding solar module as an option. The price they ask for the whole package is quite competitive, though. And then it's a ready to run system. Good luck!

Think it might be a better concept to have a standalone cheap solar array that can charge any laptop, say, an ultralight like the Samsung ChromeBook. But Linux would be a better OS for that ultralight.