I'm Thinking about getting a tablet, but I need a little advice. I'm a college student so I'm looking for the best deal I can find. I'd like to get one with a Core 2 Duo processor. The best deals I've found on these come with the normal Windows vista OS.

Newegg.com - TOSHIBA Portege M400-EZ5031 Tablet PC Intel Core 2 Duo T5600(1.83GHz) 12.1" XGA 1GB DDR2 667 80GB 5400rpm Intel GMA950 - Retail

Is it really necessary to have the tablet edition or is there enough cheap or free software out there to just get the regular edition? What's the real benefit of getting the Tablet edition OS?

Thanks.

It makes a difference as to which version of XP is installed. If you are planning to stick with Vista, you will get the tablet enhancements.

you need the tablet pc functions sorry to say if ubuntu would create a driver for the wacom tablet panel that is used in almost all tablet pc's then you could just use linux i am really sad that these tablets come with vista though vista has major security issues and malware problems right now.