Where to buy the iPad 1

The iPad is a one-stop shop with everything you could want from a portable tablet computer.

* It has a built-in ereader, and you can buy ebooks from Apple's ebook store (and Amazon have announced they are developing a Kindle for iPad app)
* it has an Office function - it comes with Apple's iWork 2010 pre-loaded and lets you create and read documents, spreadsheets and presentations and read pdfs.
* The multimedia function allows you to listen to music, play games, watch movies and YouTube videos (it's the ipod part of the iPad)
* It has a built in Apple safari browser, which allows you to surf the net, read and send email and generally do everything you would do online with a PC
* Finally, Apple have invited software developers to produce apps for the iPad - and it's the apps that make this a must-have tablet PC.

There are a few drawbacks to the iPad:

* the internet browser can't see flash. This makes it similar to the current situation on the iPhone. In practice it means that where there are flash graphics or flash adverts on a webpage, you should just see a blue cube. On the plus side, because flash is used so heavily in advertising and slows the loading of the page, it's ommision means your web-browsing should be must faster on the iPad.
* there is no built-in camera and no video-conferencing function. The absense of a camera shouldn't matter too much to iPad users, but the ommision of video-conferencing is a serious loss to busines users.
* the iPad does not have a built-in USB port. You have to buy a separate dock with a USB port if you want to transfer documents to and from your PC.