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• I had a similar and even more extreme 'left on the doorstep' experience. Mine arrived the day after I left to visit the family (oddly enough in San Jose). But I live in Madison, WI which, in the 8 days my xo sat by my door 3-4 hours of freezing rain and about a foot of snow in my driveway when I returned. Luckily, there was a protective overhang overthe xo. Still, the box was distorted from the moisture and actually frozen to the concrete! After allowing two hours to warmup I took it out of its warped box, dried it off and fired it up. No problem!
  
  It should be noted that the documntion provided did say that it was intentionally limited, to reduce waste. In fact I found the xo to be very intuitive and was able tofind most features without the online docs.
  
  I think the dual mode display was an outstanding and innovative design choice. It provides color but still allows the xo to be used in bright sunlight where children will (ideally) spend a lot of thier time. Show the xo's size, weight,and display capabilities to a field researcher in the natural sciences (or the young, developing researcher) and I think they would bevery pleased indeed. One other nice feature of the display that was not mentioned is that it can be rotated. This allows the display to fold into place with the screen facing out, forming a 'tablet' style reader with game keys providing support for navigation. The only drawback here is that there is no way to control the cursor in 'tablet mode' (should be added).
  
  I think the keyboard works well. It is intended for small hands after all. Typing with adulthands is a bit strained but it is the hand, notthe device that isthe problem I think. One issue I do see is that the space key requiresa bit more force that the other keys. Just a tweak needed there but I think matching touch sensitivity would smooth typing effort. I does work, i'm typing this comment on my xo! :)
  
  I agree the touch pad is inconsistent and the use of hot corners with dedicated navigation keys may be confusing.
  
  Overall, VERY impressive. the last time I was this excited over a new computer was in 1979 when I got my apple2. I can imagine all the kids out there finding the terminal interface and starting to poke around in linux. Oh, to be young! :) I can't wait to get the emulator running and develop my first 'activity'. Hmmmm.... field research eh??? :) In reply to: "Unboxing OLPC's XO-1 laptop"

  December 30, 2007

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