Agree. Ever hear of a Raspberry Pi? Or an Arduino or Pandaboard?
Wat? Dude, I seriously hope you're trolling there.
I'm ordering an Arduino with a few goodies tomorrow and a Pi on the next paycheck (from Element14 of course...). Pandaboard... maybe someday, though I had been eyeing the Beagleboard for a while. Hmm... dual Cortex A9 but no bios or nonvolatile memory OR single Cortex A8... yeah, Pandaboard it is.
...And of course I'll be first in line to get a Parallella when that comes out, though I'm not coder enough to take real advantage of the 64-core co-processor. Then again, maybe that'll be a good reason to start learning in earnest...
My point was going along with xtabber's comment about re-purposing old and unused phones. Working in a call center for a big phone provider, I've suggested as much to many customers, and they seem to think it's pretty cool that the phones are still usable, just not as
phones per se, unless with Google Voice or Skype over Wifi. Installing a Linux, they could be used in a similar way, but it would be much more open for experimentation and possible innovation, and extend the possible useful life of the device.
Just sayin...