With all the hype and &quot;life-altering&quot; claims being made prior to the launch of the iPad, I was very skeptical. When it was announced, I was disappointed. Here's this smooth-operating tablet device that can't multitask, has no USB ports, and pretty much no scalability/expandability.

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Yesterday I was able to finally get my hands on one, and while the limitations mentioned above are still present, I was much more impressed with it. It's very smooth and responsive, the keyboard worked well in both portrait and landscape modes, and kept up with the speed in which I type (thought it's very difficult to touch-type without any feel of the keys). When paired with a well implemented Citrix environment, the limitations of the device are lessened, and for those who do the occasional web browsing and check their email, it'd be a great gadget to have.

In the realm of being an e-reader, the iBooks application seemed to have a limited library in comparison to the other devices out there. But if you found a book you wanted to read in the library, the &quot;readability&quot; on the iPad is wonderful. The page turning helps it have more of a book feel, and the text is clear and vibrant. You can display two pages at a time in the landscape mode (page 1 on the left, page 2 on the right), or a single page in portrait mode.

So if the question is, &quot;Will you buy one?&quot;, my answer is &quot;Maybe&quot;. I'm interested to see what Google's tablet offering will be (though was a bit disappointed they're likely going to use their Android OS, and not Chrome), so it may be a while before I'm a proud tablet owner.