This is interesting to read your comments. So, why an Android-based OS for a laptop instead of a Linux distribution?
There is a simple reason for that: although Linux distributions are great, they often miss something useful: application support.
One thing I remember when doing Mandrake Linux, is, we tried to convince people that they could use Gimp instead of Photoshop, or KDEnlive instead of Premiere. This kind of things. And this did not succeed, because, obviously, graphists are using Photoshop, and video editors are using Premiere and similar professionnal applications.
It was the same story with Firefox OS: the lack of supported applications killed the project.
That’s the reason I think using Android as a base, for phones, but also for other devices like tablets and laptops is the way to go if you are seeking acceptation from a large number of users, individuals, professionnals, industry customers.
Another reason, is that probably, we can eventually start to offer a kind of integration of /e/OS accross various devices like smartphone and PC, to retrieve the same environment and data on your phone and your desktop PC or laptop.