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[Peter L]

I received our two today at 10 am (FedEx had told me it was set to deliver tomorrow).  One has a orange XO logo and the other one is blue head with green X/body.  Minimalist is the word that comes to mind for the packaging and I am not complaining (I am not a fan of packaging).  Both laptops were in small boxes held in place with heavy cardboard (i.e., recyclable or burn it for heat) egg crate things.  Three plastic bags--battery, charger and laptop.  Two sheets of paper.  One a letter from Mr. Negroponte and the second a fold out set of, again, minimal instructions.  True to form, I have not read either one, relying on the OLPC statements about it being intuitive and kids can figure out anything (born in early sixties, so I'm a real old kid).  So far so good, but I've only had about 20 minutes with each laptop.  Lots of buttons, functions and apps to try out yet.

I got some music playing on it.  Opened up maps of the world and tried loading Sim City but had to cut that short because kids were approaching quickly.  These laptops are nice and compact, imagine putting a handle on a hardback book and you'll get a good idea of size.  The keyboard is definitely made for kids hands.  I have to do hunt and peck or I end up fat fingering everything.  I have not had any problems with the touch pad on either laptop.  There is one feature that I like alot--when you are in a program and it occupies the whole screen, you move the cursor off the screen and it brings up the Mac-style menu of other apps at the bottom.  I also discovered that when you are browsing or doing other activities and you want to exit the program, you've got to select the Activity button at the top of the screen.  Then you will see the "X" in the right hand corner to exit the program.  Maybe there is a better/more recommended way to do this, but again, I have a total of 40 minutes experience with these things.

All in all, I am very pleased and I believe our kids will be thrilled with them.

[JB]

Does Microsoft know you bought two Linux machines? 

Glad it worked out of the box for you.  Let us know how your kids handle it!