* It is text mode, meaning I can run it when X won't start up, over a low bandwidth SSH link, or when I just don't feel like looking at graphics.
* More control over how pages are displayed. I very often don't like the colour schemes that webmasters think are great, and in elinks, ignoring their choices is as simple as pressing %. But if I do like the color, it lets me use it!
* ECMAScript and CSS support. Pretty minimal support, but enough to be useful, but both also easily ignored. Future versions should improve its support.
* Being text mode, it ignores webmaster's font selections. I also configured Firefox and Konqueror to do this, but it is much easier when it is a non issue in the first place.
* Low system resource requirements. When started, it eats only about 6 megobytes of memory, and it remains low as you browse. The highest I got it in initial testing was 12 MiB. Compared to Firefox's greedy 100 MiB when started, this is very nice!
* It seems stable. All graphical browsers I have used have given my stability problems. The text mode browsers haven't, but I've not yet left it running for days on end, so this might be premature.
* Tables and frame support. Often taken for granted, but this is one thing that lynx doesn't have.
* Fast. No waiting on slow graphical renders, just looking at the text.
* HIGHLY configurable. All the keypresses can be remapped for maximum customizability. I set mine to mimic vi, and it easily flowed right along with this, working nicefully.
* Mouse support, including scroll wheel. With the excellent custom keys, I will rarely need the mouse, but it is there and works great for when I do want to use it.
* External editor for textareas. I can just punch up vi or vim to edit textareas on webpages, using all their power. I love it. If I went insane one day, I could even use emacs! (I like emacs, just not as much as vi :-) )
* Tabs. Tabs are one of the thing that I can't seem to live without any more. Wether in my browser, text editor, or anything else, I love tabs. elinks support them, and they are easy to use, especially with custom keybindings.
* Easy piping of information to external commands. At the press of a key, I can pump information about my page to grep or firefox, or whatever I want. It is the *nix way, and I like it. Lets me reuse my other tools more efficintly.
* Programmable completion of URLs and forms. Not played with this too much yet, but from what I see, it rivals or maybe exceeds things like search toolbars and autocomplete (like Konqueror and Opera have).
* Easy bookmarks. Again, right at the press of a single key. Doesn't get easier than that.
* Built in bit torrent client. Not something I use often, but since it is there, I felt I should mention it.