From a UK perspective, the C64 was the ugly computer with the reasonable graphics, good games and audio that took a long time to load. They might as well have sold it with a single key that did LOAD "*",8,1
The Sinclair Spectrum was the cute little computer with the crappy, albeit detailed, graphics and fun games that was cheaper.
The Amstrad CPC was the other computer with colourful good graphics, average sound and decent business abilities (CP/M for example) and came with a monitor so the home TV wasn't taken over.
The C64 was laughed at for having the worst BASIC and for being ugly. Spectrum was laughed at for being a Spectrum. Amstrad was laughed at for not being very good at games (well, it was good, but its bitmapped screen made it a bit slower than a computer with tiled graphics). The bad BASIC on the C64 forced curious people to learn assembler, hence the good smooth games. The good BASIC on the CPC (not as good as the BBC, but that was a school computer, ewww!) meant lots of homebrew software, but fewer people hit the hardware in assembler. The Spectrum ... well, Spectrum programmers used MAXAM on a CPC then transferred the data across to the Spectrum.
The Atari 8-bits were nowhere in the UK, but I hear they were popular in the USA. They beat the C64 in terms of graphics and BASIC, but cost ... not until the XE, and that was too little too late.
I agree, AmigaOS was the perfect OS for systems like a PDA. Too late now, of course. Whilst AmigaOS keeps on being targetted towards expensive desktop systems, it would be better spending the time making it run in a suitable niche.
Edit: ooh, 200th post.
