There are apps for displaying music and guitar tablature, doing some finger painting sketches, reading comic books, playing strategy games, planning a tube journey, booking a restaurant, checking your flights. The list is, quite literally, endless.

Love to bring this with me to client meetings (I'm a wedding photographer) to show off slideshows of images and review my wedding collections PDF!

I must admit this is my first Ipad and now i don't know how I'd lived without one. It's hard to remember what i used to do with my arms when i sat and watched television however they are well and truly utilised now.

Usability; Features; Aesthetics and General Awesomeness

Price; Fragility

Check out our full comparison with the iPad Mini ! Launched at the same time as the Apple iPad Mini , the fourth generation iPad came as a bit of a surprise, mostly because the third generation iPad hit our shelves just six short months ago.

Impressive Retina display; Surprisingly good battery life; Great range of apps; 4G support; Updated FaceTime camera

Not very portable; No memory card slot

The iPad was introduced as one of the first tablet devices of this generation. It can be thought of as a super-charged iPod touch, with a far larger screen and many more exciting features. The iPad has Apple's 1 GHz A4 system and 512 MB of RAM.

It's a very expensive but essentially fun toy. Not quite mobile, not quite PC, but engaging anyway.

Fantastic design Easy to use Lends itself well to the average consumer

Incredibly expensive Doesn't know what it wants to be Tough for work No Flash support; But you knew that

There is much debate where the Apple iPad is concerned. Is it worth the money? Can it fully replace a laptop? Is it simply a glorified iPhone with a larger screen? All of these are certainly valid questions and deserve an answer before a product of such cost is purchased.

Is it worth it? Put it this way. If you never bought one, you wouldn't miss it. But buy it and you'll soon wonder how you lived without it.

Brilliant user interface; lovely LCD screen; great form factor and design; WiFi support

Quite an expensive gadget; expensive accessories; no Flash support

Of course the iPad is not solely an entertainment device. It offers serious functionality such as such as simple-to-use email and a fine e-reader for, y'know, "books." At the same time, it lacks the goods under the hood to make it a viable alternative to a true "tablet computer," for mainstream work...

Big; gorgeous screen; Works with current iPhone/iPod touch apps; Up to a 64GB of memory (and 8+ hours of battery life) in a slim package; Movies; music; internet and more; big enough to share and intuitive to operate

How are we supposed to hold it for long periods of time; Onboard sound is severely limited; No flash support; Charging is not as simple as it could be

It has its limitations but as long as you know this before you buy, the iPad is sexy, slick, fast and a real object of desire.

Email and web were made for the iPad; games look great and play smoothly; the operating system is solid; speedy and oh-so-easy to use

Flash player for webpage videos; no camera or webcam; costs a small fortune