ASUS K42 Series K42JC-C1 Notebook w/ NVIDIA Optimus Intel Core i5 460M(2.53GHz) 14" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 500GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce 310M + Intel HD

Pros: Purchased this October 2010
Got this for its performance specs thinking that the smaller monitor would use less power consumption (I was mistaken).
I consider this my portable desktop, can handle difficult tasks and performs quickly.
Video quality is fabulous.
Love the multi-touch keypad in Windows.
Keyboard has a nice feel (I was worried by some reviews that complain about the keyboard being flimsy but I have no idea what they were talking about).
I was initially disappointed with the small size after I realized it didn't save me much on the battery life but now I like the increased portability.
Amazing warranty though I have not had to use it so I cannot comment on customer support.

Cons: Extremely disappointed with the battery life. In light use i get 1 hour 45 mins. I would hate to see how poorly it does without the hyped up "NVIDIA Optimus increases battery life & performance"
Found 1 Linux kernel that let me hibernate, when I updated the distro I was no longer able too (frustrating for trying to come back to what you were doing).
Speakers are weak.
No Linux driver for the graphics card (I wonder if the power consumption in Linux is negatively affected by this).
Multi-touch keypad does not work in Linux (I tried messing with the drivers but never got it to work, if you figure it out please post a link to a how-to).

Other Thoughts: I dual boot the provided Win7 and Ubuntu. It has done well with Ubuntu 10.04 through 11.04 though you CANNOT install the NVIDIA driver or you get a blank screen when you boot (best solution I found was to re-install the OS and skip installing the proprietary drivers).
Because of the hyper threading, Linux treats this as a quad core.
Ubuntu drivers had a hard time with the combined audio in/out jack when 10.04 with updates it started working fine.

Pros: Reasonably powerful specs in a small form-factor
Good display
Keyboard and touchpad have matte, textured finish

Cons: Battery life not as good as expected (on a full charge, browsing the internet and waching videos while putting the laptop in power saver mode only yielded a batter life of about 2 hours)
Top cover is a fingerprint magnet
Mouse button is horrible
Poor sound quality
Lots of ASUS Bloatware

Other Thoughts: I bought this as a gift for my father, hoping for a portable but powerful laptop with 4+ hours of battery life. While the laptop meets expectations on the first two counts, it does not have a decent battery life. I have only managed to coax about 2-3 hours out of it while browsing the internet/watching online videos. It may be better under different type of use with more fine-tuned power settings (I just put it on Power Saver).

Overall though, its a decent laptop for the price although nothing spectacular.