My eeePC arrived today. Here are my impressions so far.
The stock Xandros install just felt very lacking and has limited expandability for other programs, so I tried Windows XP using an external optical drive.

Windows XP installed very quickly (under an hour including all the drivers, which install from a single click off the CD).

Then I decided I'd try Linux, so I put Xubuntu for the eeePC (there's a distribution packaged for this gadget), but I ran into plenty of issues. I had issues getting the sound to work, then it couldn't install Flash no matter how many attempts I made following various guides, then I had issues getting Skype to work. I had enough after about 3 hours of screwing with it and went back to XP I'm sad to admit. :)

OSX sounds nice, but on the eeePC there are currently no drivers for the wifi, ethernet, display (so you don't even get 800x480, you get 640x480), webcam, or mic -- making it totally not worth it.

XP runs damn well with 512 MB since it's all stripped out. I ran all the basic tweaks I know, turned off the background image and special effects, etc. The whole install took a minimal amount of disk space since I downloaded a "performance" edition instead of going straight off my XP Pro CD.

What else so far... The touchpad is tiny, but there's no gripes here. It works fine despite its small size. The resolution doesn't bother me much once I switched Firefox to small icons and hid the bookmarks toolbar. I set the XP taskbar to auto-hide, scoring another 50 or so pixels. I use the browser in full screen mode and prefer alt tabbing to another browser over using tabs (since they take another 40 pixels of vertical space or so).

Youtube videos run fine, even maximized. I haven't tried music but I'm sure it's okay. Skype runs pretty poorly and with video it put the CPU at 100% without any hope of use (at this time). I'll try making more tweaks to it later.

The only real complaint I have is the keyboard which is obviously tiny. I can type pretty fast on it (>80 WPM) if I look down every now and then, but I type almost twice as fast on a full size keyboard. With practice I'm sure I can get my speed to a reasonable rate. The shift key on the right side is tiny which is really annoying, and the backspace key is undersized (larger than the shift key at least). Practice probably makes perfect. I'll have a lot of time to evaluate all of this before I write a formal review.

Here's a pic of the eeePC sitting next to my brother's 15.4" Toshiba. It's amazing how big a "normal" notebook is next to this cute little thing. :D


Edit (added at 7:34 AM the next morning): I discovered a few cool things since I posted this.

I went to bed around midnight but was so anxious to test some software (like iTunes and open office) that I shamelessly played with the eeePC while laying down before going to sleep.

This notebook is great for using in bed! Since it weighs practically nothing, does not put out a ton of heat, and can be rotated and moved around at will without regard for its solid state drive, it's the perfect bed-side companion. I discovered last night that you can rotate the screen from landscape to portrait using the CTRL-ALT up/down/left/right keys.

Once you find a document you're interested in (I set my homepage to Google Reader), you can rotate the screen 90 degrees and read it like you're holding a book. The only downside is that the touchpad and arrow keys don't also "rotate", so your "left" becomes "down", and so-on. You can get used to it though. :)

It also worked great this morning. I rolled over trying to go back to sleep around 6 AM, but had too much on my mind. In the past when this happens I'd get out of bed and start writing, either on paper or on my desktop. This time I reached over and grabbed the eeePC, which despite having nearly 30% battery life remaining at this point, was sufficient to let me squeeze out a few pages of writing before I finally decided to wake up.

BTW, I tend to ignore the shift-key and apostrophes, at least at night, when typing on the eeePC. They are both way too hard to find at this point and I find that I make too many typos. Thankfully, OpenOffice Writer fixes all my major errors on the fly producing some nice coherent text. :)

Update (July 3, 2008):
I recently sold my eeePC because a friend needed one to travel. I was offered about what I paid for it and knew with the 900 out (901 just around the corner), I should make the upgrade. I will buy a 900 or 901 soon though.

Over the period of January to July, I put hundreds of hours of use on my eeePC. Here's my lasting impressions:
The 700 model's screen is great but the resolution is simply too low for daily use. The 800-pixel width is a problem on many sites as they are just too wide. Opera's "Fit to Screen" feature was ideal for this situation. The 480-pixel height was insufficient for several reasons (not nearly as frustrating as the width), mainly because it required tons of scrolling or pagedown'ing.

The keyboard's size becomes rather annoying on long trips. During this period I took a 2-week trip to the bay area and did plenty of forum and blog posting, which continually tested my patience and endurance. The problem is that the keyboard's so tight, your hands can become uncomfortably cramped if used in this fashion. I have pretty small hands (I'm a small guy) but it was just too much after 2-weeks. Even a few days into the trip I was becoming slightly annoyed.

The best use of this notebook is for a great travel companion in a pinch. I packed it into my bag with all my clothes, shoes, etc. for two week stay. Normally I'd have to take two bags with my 15.4" notebook, but the eeePC made it quite easy to carry everything I needed.

I would definitely consider the eeePC 700 for traveling, but with the 900s now out in retail, the extra resolution seems more than justified with the extra cost. And of course, the longer-lasting, bigger SSD 901s are just around the corner...

Summary
Good:
- Extremely portable and lightweight
- Clear screen
- High-quality construction
- Affordable
- Handles most tasks without problems
- Good battery life

Bad:
- Low-resolution screen makes some web sites almost impossible to navigate
- Slows down severely when watching videos or using many web tabs
- Tiny keyboard may lead to cramps and discomfort with extended use

Score: 3.5 out of 5 (70%)