I mainly bought this laptop because of the NVIDIA graphics card and the battery life. I wanted a sturdy, mobile, laptop that I could take to my classes and to work, that I could also use to play modern games on at home. My first choice was an Acer TimelineX laptop that has about the same stats and costs the same price, with a 9 hour battery life and more hard drive space. Unfortunately, that model had been sold out everywhere and I was told it would probably be discontinued. So I decided to buy this laptop instead.
Pros: Graphics card is really decent and works with most modern games (I've tried COD, Wolfenstein ET, MW2, Maple Story), realistic 6.5 hour battery life (on battery save mode), beautiful chiclet keyboard with blue accents, sturdy trackpad, overall sleek look when cleaned regularly, weighs just over 4 pounds, easy access to hardware for upgrades
Cons: Overall, the monitor in general is not good quality. I'm not familiar with asus laptops (so I'm not sure if all of their laptops have this feature) but the monitor feels cheap and wasn't connected to the computer with sturdy hinges. I don't think it will last long. The outside of the monitor shows tons of fingerprints, and the glare is insane unless you have it open at just the right angle. Also, the color scheme significantly changes depending on the angle of the screen. (I have a little lenovo x120e netbook and it's screen size is thicker than this Asus one, making it much more protected for my mobile needs.)
Other thoughts: The left and right clicker buttons are already scratched up from just a few hours of use. It's a little disappointing to find this in a $600+ computer.. They could have used a much better material. Also, this is a small thing and I knew it going in, but the clickers are not separated (and they're quite noisy). This got to be really annoying in class when I was taking notes on my laptop. I kept hitting the right instead of the left, then accidentally scratching up the buttons. It was not a fun experience.
My overall impression is just okay. I'm used to lenovo laptops (and I really miss the trackpoint feature), but this is a nice change and meets some of my needs. (I probably won't carry this around anymore due to the monitor issues and because it's quite large, but I can use it at home with an external mouse and keyboard for plying games.) I would definitely suggest a thorough search before making a decision to buy this laptop. You can find better stats and prices elsewhere, with one exception: the graphics card. If you're not using this as a cheap, somewhat mobile, gaming machine, I would suggest looking elsewhere.