Well the only thing that makes it different than computers and consoles is retardedly obvious. That would be the ability to minimize your game to the WiiU-pad and take it back to your room; then you can return to play on the TV again when you want. Then when you're playing the game on the TV the touchpad works as your inventory, map, weapon or whatever the game wants it to be. Screw pausing the game to look at your inventory and map, now you can just look at your hands and use a sexy touch screen. There's probably going to be all sorts of touch related mini-games or items jammed into everything we see; just thinking of what the next Zelda will be like gives me orgasms.
Finally, HD Legend of Zelda is on the way and we won't be expected to hold the fucking WiiMote like a sword the whole time. THANK YOU HESUS; FUCK SKYWARD SWORD WAS ANNOYING. I mean it was alright but from the flapping arm motions on the bird to fighting Deku Baba's for 10 minutes on end trying to get the perfect diagonal slice; that game just wore me out. Hopefully we'll finally see something greater than OoT, WW and TP combined.
We would of preordered one but they were completely out of room for preorders- and the waiting list was 6000+ people long so it'll be a while before we get one. Hopefully we'll have one by Christmas, but I'll just be happy to have a Wii again since ours broke. I better be able to port over all my NES, SNES and N64 games though.. OOOH and maybe they'll sell GameCube games and whatnot in the WiiU store now..
It's any Xbox or PS release after this that'll be a waste of a console; now that they're all turning into computers with controller ports.
WiiU "Info"
Storage
Internal flash memory: 8GB(7.2GB usable) - $299 for Basic Set, 32GB(29GB usable) - $349 Deluxe Set.
Expandable memory via external USB hard drive and SDHC memory cards
CPU
IBM Power®-based multi-core microprocessor
IBM has revealed it to be a 45nm chip, with embedded DRAM. Additionally, the CPU is based on the same chip that is used in the Watson supercomputer, implying it is a Power7 model. (Source: Kotaku)
Previously rumored to be roughly 50% more powerful than PS3. (Source: IGN) Recent reports of actual hardware however suggest it to be much greater, putting it around 20% less powerful than the next gen Xbox (which is rumored to be at least 6 times more powerful than current gen consoles). Again, all rumors however, so please don't get too obsessed with power.
RAM
The Wii U has 2GB of RAM. 1GB of RAM is allocated to system functions. Examples of system functions include TVii and Mii-verse. The other 1GB is allocated for games.