In the last 3 months I bought 2 Toshiba 13 inch Chromebook for $300.
"A properly configured iPad, leveraging iCloud for device backups, photo backups, email credentials etc, solves all of these problems."
but a Chromebook does all of that with close to zero configuration with a device that has a built-in keyboard, and a 13 inch 1080P screen. You do loose the touch interface, but end up paying roughly half of the iPad's price.