For a long time I've dreamed of the day that I wouldn't have to cart around lots of notebooks, pens, pencils, highlighters, paper, and binders. I dreamed of the day I could carry something like they iPad with me wherever I went, take notes, write code, complete assignments, write papers, draw diagrams and graphs...do everything on the go. That day has arrived with the release of the ASUS Slate EP121.

It's better than an iPad in numerous ways. It offers all the productivity of a laptop, plus the ability to hand write notes, draw on screen captures, and annotate pdfs. It also offers the world's most popular operating system--and it runs Windows 7 well.

And whereas other Tablet PC's in the past have cost an arm and a leg, this thing is extremely good looking, very nimble on its feet, totally portable, and far more affordable than anything else in its productivity class has ever been.

In short, I love my ASUS Slate.

The only con is that the battery life isn't *that* great relative to netbooks, but is pretty respectable relative to laptops. It gets about 4 hours under normal usage and much-reduced brightness settings (which are totally sufficient).

My hopes for future generations of the Slate are: more battery life, a discrete graphics chip (but believe me, the graphics performance of the Slate is exceptional considering it's running integrated graphics), and a bigger SSD drive.

Keep in mind that on mine I have a full install of Windows 7, Visual Studio 2010, Office 2010, Microsoft Expression Suite, Intel Parallel Studio 2011, LibreOffice 3, etc etc etc. And I still have something like 15GB left!

In short, I love my Slate and can't say enough good things about it. In my opinion ASUS really hit it out of the park on this one. THIS is what a Windows 7 Tablet PC/Slate SHOULD be.

If you're a student, this is just what you need. Trust me. It rocks!