Are SSDs an especially attractive option for portable computers and mobile device?

According to some of the HDD (spinning disk) manufactuers over 75% of all HD failures in laptops is because of hard handling (vibration/drops) while in use (not in sleep mode or off).

A number of reasons for a SSD in a laptop is because of no issues of vibration type damage (no spinning disks on the SSD) and much faster boot /access times. If you can get past the extra cost then at least for a laptop that is the way to go.

About the only drawback on an SSD is the unknown life expectence. Right now in simple terms they "wear out" by heavy read/writes and erasing of the drive. The newer ones are correcting those problems.