Did you listen to the Pre on it, when you played with it at the show? How does it sound?
There was too much background noise around the booth to be able to test the pres, but I've been told by two people independently at Samson that they're really happy with them. Time will tell.
As for battery life, the company is claiming up to 4 hours which I assume is with the internal mics. Figure on cutting that in half for an external mic with phantom power, so you're probably going to want to use this with an external battery pack.
I can tell you that there wasn't a single podcaster I spoke with who saw this that didn't want one!
UPDATE: Mine's on its way as well.
Craig