The word on the street is that we will be seeing Asus' U1 notebook very soon, possibly even next week! The ultraportable notebook features an 11.1" LED-backlit display and tips the scales at just 2.2lbs. I had a chance to play with one of these at CES in January and I was quite impressed. At the time I was using a Lenovo Thinkpad X60 tablet which is no slouch, but the U1 was considerable more portable and the design is much cooler. Plus Asus is reporting a battery life of 7 hours! So far there has not been much news on the U1 available in the USA market, but is appears there is already a few reviews out in other countries. The Bangkok Post has an interesting review in their Gadgets section ( a reprint from Cnet Asia). Their system was rocking a Core Duo process (U2400) and 1.5GB RAM with an 80GB hard drive. Extras included a fingerprint reader, external optical drive, and webcam. It was running Windows Vista home, as you can see in the picture. No word on wireless connectivity (aside from Bluetooth and wireless). This notebook really looks like a sweet package. I am not going to come out and call it a Panasonic Toughbook killer just yet, but it is clearly gunning for people who are looking for a great ultraportable like the Panasonic R4. It's still to early to tell if the U1 is really competition to something as proven as the Toughbooks or the Thinkpad X60s (the business crowd will definitely be leaning towards the Thinkpad, as usual) but I have high hopes...