It was one of the earlier examples of a touchscreen laptop; released in 1997 (which you might notice is extremely close to the release date of the iMac G3 in 1999), it is kind of similar to a Microsoft Surface laptop today. However, unlike the Surface, the eMate was not all that powerful, and was actually intended mostly for use in schools by young children. This is the main reason for its striking appearance, which even back in the time it was originally released looked more like a plastic toy than a laptop.
You may be surprised to learn that despite looking like a cheap toy, the Florida police department had plans to replace their computers with the eMate due to it being cheap and user friendly, as described in this article from MacWorld by Benj Edwards.
(Psst. You might also be interested to learn about the rest of the Apple Newton line of devices; where the eMate 300 is an early predecessor for a touchscreen laptop, the other Newtons were a predecessor for what we would call a tablet today. 😉)