Being that I am somewhat of a technophile, when offered the opportunity to play with an iPad, i gladly said yes. I must first admit that I did have some preconceived notions to deal with, but I tried to be as open-minded as I possibly could. While I do not completely understand the draw that Apple has as a brand name, they do put out some nice looking products, and the iPad is no exception. There are plenty of apps and it uses the same OS as the iPhone. It is, however, not without shortcomings.

Admittedly, I am not a lover of all things Apple. I am quite happy in my “Wintel” world, and tend to stay there. I have worked with Macs before, but don’t particularly like them. Some of that may be due to the fact I am just more familiar with Windows and Linux, but there is some of it that is due to hardware interface issues. Mac keyboards and mice are atrocious as far as I am concerned. All this being said, my initial reaction to the iPad, was surprising: I was impressed. It has a nice feel, both in texture of materials used for case construction and in weight. It is a good size. It’s not so big that you can’t really take it with you, but it is definitely large enough to be far more ergonomically functional than an iPod or iPhone. Of course the OS is based off of the iPhone, so the interface is quite intuitive. Also, the onscreen keyboard that pops up for things like typing in web addresses or e-mails is quite usable, even when held in portrait orientation rather than landscape. All in all, not too shabby.

Of course, not being a regular Apple disciple, once the “shiny new tech toy” feeling started to wane, the more obvious its flaws became. To start with, it lacks an internal optical drive. I’m not saying it needs a DVD-R or DVD-RW, but this would be a logical device for a DVD-ROM. True, you can stream Netflix with one of the available apps, but why not just have a DVD player? I shouldn’t be forced into buying another service to use a particular feature. Other people point out the lack of a web cam. I’m not so sure this is a flaw, but I understand their reasoning, and see no reason why there shouldn’t be one. The only network connections it has are wireless. This one is minor, and for most people, inconsequential; after all, odds are, you aren’t going to use this in an environment where a cabled network connection would be necessary, but it’s good to have a backup. It ultimately does nothing that you can’t do on either a laptop or netbook. In fact, an iPhone will do what an iPad will, and you can make phone calls on it. Despite claims to the contrary, fingerprints show up horribly. Admittedly, this is minor, but for something that is supposedly fingerprint-resistant, after 5 minutes, it looked like a 3-year old with dirty hands had gotten hold of it. Finally, lets talk price. I could buy two netbooks for the cost of one iPad. I could buy a regular laptop for the cost of an iPad. I could buy a desktop PC for the cost of an iPad.

• Is the iPad a shiny cool tech toy? Absolutely.
• Is the iPad a must have device? Not really.
• Is the iPad worth what Apple wants for it? No.