Am I the only one who found, when set at an angle using the apple case, that I can type at about 80% of my regular typing speed?
It's all about expectations with the iPad. It's not going to be a pure laptop replacement if you do any "serious" work (don't even think about web dev for example, although it would be awesome if Panic released Coda for the iPad), but for about 80% of what I do (especially when traveling) it's absolutely perfect. Combine that with home use, coffee shops, and instant child entertainment and you have a device worthy of your $500.
If it doesn't fit into your life, don't get it! I still don't understand the point of the reviews where they try to do EVERYTHING possible on the iPad. It's clearly not meant for that, stop treating it like it is.
Would be a good bit cheaper too.
A netbook? I hope that's a joke. Why would I want a cheaply built, underpowered (I'll bet the iPad out performs most netbooks), mini laptop that doesn't run OSX or iPhone OS (as in I can't stand Windows or any linux distro)?
At risk of sounding like a fanboy I'm going to quote Steve Jobs himself: "We don’t know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk,"
The iPad is underpowered in that it can't run Vim or emacs. If you are a developer, being able to run a text editor is the baseline for a device.
Why would you want a cheaply built laptop? So when your bag gets stolen or dropped or whatever, you lose a $200 netbook rather than a $500 iPad or a $1000 laptop.
As for not running OS X? Google 'hackintosh'.
Honestly, life is too short, I'm not going to sacrifice quality because of a fear that at any moment my bag may be stolen. It's also pretty easy to not, you know, leave your bag sitting somewhere in public? A $300 difference is worth it because of the upgrade in quality and less frustration.
Again, this all comes down to your personality and lifestyle. Steve Jobs did not get up on stage and say the iPad is a laptop replacement. It's a device meant to replace SOME, not all, of your daily activities (heck maybe they are not even daily, maybe it's your weekend only device or something). If you don't see it fitting into your life, don't buy one. That doesn't mean it doesn't work for someone other then you though!
'Piece of Junk' is in the eyes of the beholder. In my experience, a $300 netbook has been the most productive machine I've ever owned.
edit: Sorry about the dupes, for some reason my phone freaked out and sent this three times. Fixed now.
I also know that in a pinch, I can plug in a monitor and a usb keyboard and use it like a full machine (just with no 3d, and a slower processor). But for 95% of what I need (and I need some pretty processor intensive tasks, like photo editing, audio editing, etc.) it works "good enough". And it's unbeatable value for the dollar.
My thoughts exactly. Purely as a reading device, it will be fantastic for scientific papers which are usually in hard formatted PDFs. Reflowing them for a small e-ink device sucks and makes them hard to read. Having color is a huge bonus (10 shades of grey in a color coded graph is a royal pain). The iPad + the GoodReader app will let you take hundreds of papers and technical books with you. The fact that it has a pretty good web browser and email app with WiFi is an awesome bonus.
If you want a device to read PDFs, play some games, and browse the web it's fantastic.
iPad + GoodReader + 10 hour battery life is bliss.
Still pretty f'ing good.