We have an eeePC at our house. It is one of the seashell models and only 3-4 months old. About two weeks ago, the power supply blew. Once we got a replacement power supply and were able to turn the eeePC back on, the screen had a large, wave-shaped swath of dead pixels at the bottom edge, so bad that the taskbar needed to be moved to the top, in order for Windows to still be usable. I've never had a laptop fail so hard, so soon.
My eeePC 701 from january 2008 has been dropped quite a few times (it has been used as a jukebok among bottles and glasses outdoor and fell on the floor, been used by children, and I regularly throw it away to my bed or couch when I'm done with it) and has no problem. It is rock solid, as written on the box. I actually spend more time on it than my powerful 17" laptop.
openoffice + instant messaging + firefox + media player = ~80% of my needs.
(posted from my netbook)
My EeePc 701 from Nov. 2007 has been rock solid after daily use. I'm now putting it into service as a server. I only stopped using it when someone gave me a 9" Asus for free.
Mine has spent 200,000 miles in my backpack, and it looks the same as the day it came out of the box. (Actually, I replaced the default stickers with some of my own. But you get the idea.)
