We all know it's the year of the pad computer (you knew that, right? Cuz see, Apple made one, so, you know) but some of us haven't yet bought into Cupertino's new iPhone Mega.

HP's Slate looked sweet, right up until it was killed, and other rumors have come and gone as well. But one that always held water was the ASUS Eee Pad family. ASUS has been extremely successful with the Eee PC line so it wasn't a huge leap of faith to think they'd pull off a nice group of pad computers.

And early reports looked great: the specs were solid, the design looked to be good, and the only thing worth whining for Android fans was that new Eee Pads would all be running variants of Windows (from Embedded Compact 7 to Windows 7 Home Premium).

But now, even that's changed, at least in the case of the EP101TC.

According to Netbook News, their staff has actually spent time at ASUS checking out the 10-inch tablet, and Windows has been dropped as the OS of choice in favor of Android. Rumors are that the prototype is currently running Android 2.2, but that ASUS plans to wait for the release of 3.0, code named Gingerbread, to use on the production units.

Introduction is said to be slated for CES 2011, in January.