Hands on Eee - live in the shop!

I went to a shop here in Slovenia to try the Eee myself. I went to Big Bang, a shop that has most of the technical stuff. Apparently I was lucky - they told me have just received 5 Eee computers. I kindly asked them if I could see one in action and they agreed - "but only if there's some power in the battery". Lucky for me (again) - there was enough power. I turned the PC on and I counted the seconds to boot. It was somewhere around 17 seconds, which is quite good in my opinion. I noticed that the screen has two dead pixels. well, they were not dead, they were only partly dead - I think one was green and the other one red. I was a little disappointed - I would have never bought it knowing that it was broken from the beginning. I asked about warranty and the clerk explained to me that three pixels have to be dead in order to be eligible for replacement (or free service). I hope not all models that were shipped have this flaw, because I tend to buy one of those... But this is one more reason that I won't buy the Eee online -I want to try it before I give 299 € for it.

Well, back to the shop. As I was explaining, I held the Eee in my hands, light as it is. It really is light and small, similar to holding a small paper notebook (A5) or light as holding a book. I liked that. I wanted to click around and noticed that the mouse pad was very fast. So some adjustment will be necessary. Then I have clicked around the user interface and it was nice. All the programs in place, maybe not (yet) in logical order, but every one of them only two clicks away. I opened OpenOffice.org and tried the keyboard. It's small! I think the keys are closer together and again, I will have to adjust for that. The reactions of the Eee were fast, so the experience was great. I have also tried Standby and Shut down, but I wasn't bale to measure time for that. Waking up from Standby is apparently not with a click or key stroke, but with power button. I'll have to measure this on my own Eee when I buy it.

The overall experience was great, I am even more determined to buy one for myself.