replacement
How many wins do you have in this game?
Before buying my iPad, I spent about an hour in the Apple store playing with it.  I knew I'd get some real use from it, and I knew that it met many of my wants for an ultraportable computer, but the tiny underpowered thing costs almost as much as a macbook!Obviously, I laid down my credit card and walked out of the store with it.  The store is near my office but three hours from my home.  I must admit, I had regrets in the three hour drive home.  A $900 10" iPod touch?  Am I nuts?After owning and using it for two weeks, I no longer regret the purchase as much, but I still feel that it is overpriced.  My model is the 64GB with 3G+Wifi.  I spent about $900 including tax to buy it at the Apple store and another ~$60 on "HD" apps including the iWork suite: pages, numbers, and keynote.  I do have an iPhone so I already owned a lot of apps that work with the tablet.I have found myself using it mostly for four things: document viewing for work, email, web browsing, and games.I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I've been using it for games, but I have played several and really enjoyed them.  I'm not a "gamer" at all.  I own a Wii that only gets used for watching Netflix movies on my television.  Video games are usually boring to me.  There are quite a few games designed for adults filled with puzzles and brain teasers that will change your view of computer games.  No matter who you are or how adult you think you are: you will wind up using this thing for games.  It's too fun to play games on it not to.  I recommend Labyrinth 2 HD, Osmos HD, Pinball HD, tChess Lite, and a good Solitare game.Back to getting work done: it's pretty great for email.  I have a work blackberry and a personal iPhone.  I get lots of spreadsheet and other document attachments.  Blackberry is terrible at displaying documents.  Iphone does an OK job.  This thing is a desktop replacement as a document viewer.  It isn't as good as having MS office on a PC, but you can definitely get a great view of a document with a lot of formatting intact.  It isn't really better than iPhone for viewing messages, but viewing attachments on the big screen is worlds better.  The only complaint I have about email is that it lacks the ability to thread conversations and show all email inboxes in one list like the ios4 iphone devices.  It will have those abilities this fall when it gets upgraded to ios4, but for now switching between inboxes is a bit awkward.More on document viewing.The biggest help to me at work is document viewing.  I can carry promotional materials, examples of past promotions, old communications, files for reference, presentations, price lists, spec sheets, manuals, photos, trade journals, books, and any other digital document imaginable and access them all easily when with a customer or simply to find info to make me more effective.  The iPad does not include a file system like finder or windows explorer.  The iWork apps have a documents folder, but those folders are not accessible by other apps.  All of the apps include a shortcut to open a document in other apps, but not having a universal finder app is annoying.  If you are in mail you can choose to open an attachment in Pages then email any changes back to the person, but it goes against the way we have all become accustomed to working on PCs and Macs.  There are file system and viewer apps.  I've tried two I like and one that I highly recommend: Goodreader.  Goodreader gives you a place to organize your files into folders for various projects and info.  It has viewers for office file formats, PDF files, and limited graphics files (sorry, there are no eps, ai, or similar art viewers for ipad that I've discovered yet).  Goodreader allows you to transfer files to the ipad via wifi networking, wifi using a web browser on a PC or Mac, using the USB cable, or using itunes.  Best thing about Goodreader: it's only one dollar.The built-in photos app is great.  I used my mac to convert a lot of documents to jpgs just so I could use the photos app to view and display them.  Integration between the photos app and the iwork apps and mail is great.  Syncing albums between a Mac or PC and the Photos app is a snap.  The photos app is where the "magical" in the ads comes from.  It is a delight to browse images using the app.  I'm sure you can find countless youtube videos demonstrating it if you look.  For under five dollars, you can buy Photogene or a similar app for useful photo editing on the ipad.Web browsing is the other "killer app."  Lots of people complain that iPad doesn't support flash, but I honestly don't miss it.  Most big web sites recognize that you're using an ipad and deliver non-flash versions of videos.  My biggest concern is the lack of RAM in the ipad.  The lack of RAM shows when web browsing.  If you switch between open pages, most of those pages will be reloaded because it doesn't cache much; it can't cache much with only 256mb of ram.  As long as switching between pages, and having them reload when doing so isn't a huge issue to you, web browsing on the ipad using Safari is a desktop-like experience.  I have just recently started using a third party browser called "Atomic Web."  Atomic web adds useful multitouch gestures, tabs, full screen, and adblock to the Safari browser.  I highly recommend Atomic Web for the $2 they charge for it.  It works great.The app store lets you add tons of functionality to your machine.  Count on spending $50+ depending on what you want to do with your machine.  I love the three $10ea iWork apps, the $5 photo editor, the handful of $5-$10 games I own, and the multitude of free periodical reader apps I downloaded.Watching and listening to media in ipad is really great.  The iPod interface looks like an older version of iTunes on a Mac.  Video looks great.  I've always been a fan of desktop itunes for syncing with ipod and iphone.  Ipad is exactly like iphone and ipod when interacting with the desktop.  The built in speakers in ipad are louder and sound better than iPhone and iPod touch.  They are nearly as loud as the ones on my Macbook Pro 13".  The speakers are great for listening to podcasts or watching a movie in bed or in your comfy chair.Google maps and google earth are a desktop-like experience on ipad.Battery life is where ipad kicks laptop tail.  I easily get 8+ hours from a charge.Typing on ipad in landscape mode is about like typing on a netbook; you wouldn't want to write a long document on it but it's fine for email and composing short documents and memos.  It's a lot better than I expected.  Typing in portrait mode is a bit of a chore.You WILL need to buy a case for it.  The "acase" brand ipad case that sells for $26 here at Amazon is a great choice (and the highest rated case on Amazon).  You will not be able to find an Apple case for it.  Apple cannot meet demand for ipad accessories.  The camera connection kit (usb and card reader) are also impossible to find.I'm glad I bought the largest (64GB) model.  I currently only have 25GB free after putting in 20GB of music, 8GB of films, 5GB of apps, and around 2GB of documents.  64 GB is really very ideal, but anything less would be crowded unless you don't plan to use the ipod or video player much.I bought the 3G service for it and don't regret it.  I live in the midwest and ATT has decent service here.  I am paying $15/month (no contract) for 256MB.  2GB is available for $25/mo.  I bought the cheaper plan because I have frequent access to wifi, but wanted the ability to look at email adn documents on the road if the occasion arises.  So far just using 3G for email and very infrequent browsing 256mb is plenty.  I highly recommend buying a 3G model unless you are sure that you will always have Wifi access when you use it.  It's a lot less useful if you can't connect to the web.In conclusion, this thing is very useful and very expensive.  I use it a lot.  I use my PC and my Mac a lot less now.  I carry it to places that I wouldn't consider lugging a PC to.  It allows me to carry a lot more info and digital files than I ever did before.  It makes me more effective and allows me to travel lighter.  Is it worth slightly over $1000 after buying a case and apps?  I'm still not 100% sure.  Do I love it?  yes. 