I got a heads-up just before Christmas that I’d be receiving my previously-ordered One Laptop Per Child XO Laptop (half the order I placed under the now-expired “Give One, Get One” promotion — the other XO is on its way to Mongolia, Cambodia, Haiti, Rwanda or Afghanistan) before mid-January.

Lo and behold, FedEx delivered the package today! I’ve got my tech toy.

What I don’t have is time to play with it. So I’ll have to let it sit until the weekend, when I can try ‘er out. In the meantime, first impressions of the hardware, after cracking open the box:

It’s small. I mean, small. I realize the XO was engineered for use by child-sized hands, but I was still a bit shocked. The dimensions are about 9 inches by 9 inches, including a built-in carrying handle; thickness is just a hair more than 1 inch when shut. I have to admit, the size and bright colors make it look and feel more like a toy than a “real” computer.

The keyboard is also similarly compact. It’s also made from a rubberized membrane with no spaces between the keys — I believe this is to avoid operation problems in dusty terrains where some of these machines will be shipped. I pressed a couple of keys, and they have the tactile feel they should have in a keyboard. It actually reminds me of the ancient Atari 400 Personal Computer from the early 1980s, which also sported a membrane keyboard, although less sharply-formed than the XO’s modern rendition.

That’s that for now. I’ll give it a spin in a couple of days. I can’t wait to see how the Linux interface and program set came out.