The Way I Use My iPad As A Cheap Notebook In My Daily Life

I already view the iPad as a highly functional tool. I load up Drop box with documents and spreadsheets for work and use Quick office to view and edit them. Any edits I make are then synced automatically over to my desktop for use later. I use PDF Expert to view and male notes/highlights on PDF's. I use a Pogo Sketch Pro stylus and Note shelf to take handwritten notes that can be immediately mailed out to people while I am still in meetings. Remember The Milk keeps my task paganized and synced back to Outlook on my work PC. ActiveSync keeps my calendar, contacts and mail synced with my office Exchange server. And if I really need "PC" functionality, I have Logmein Pro to remote into my home or work PC.

Then in my downtime, I get to get on Twitter, Facebook, and my email, games, IM, music, video, and just general web browsing, which I think is much better on my iPad because controlling the Internet with your finger is so much more natural than with a mouse/track pad.

I sync it about once a month. The cloud provides me a way to almost completely ditch traditional PCs, and when I absolutely must use a PC, I can just get into it remotely, so I have no problems with that. The tablet is so much better in terms of usability and ease of use and I think it will become dominant compared to computers very soon. This is all most people need.

Also, my iPad is very versatile. It turns into almost whatever I want it to be with an app. plus, with Bluetooth, wife, and the dock connector, it let you do all kinds of things like you describe. But I think the tablet has the potential to do much more. Just wait. We're in the beginning stages of the tablet revolution.

I don't even need to have a keyboard to go with my iPad. The more you use the on-screen keyboard, the faster and more accurate you get. I typed this whole thing on my iPad.

I am viewing and editing documents (rather than starting them from scratch) because I am generally using the tablet as it was intended... as a mobile device. I certainly could start the documents on the iPad and never touch a computer if I was so inclined, but I would rather sit in a chair at my desk and work with a 27" screen than a 10" one. Same reason why I don't do everything on a notebook... it isn't that the notebook isn't capable, it just isn't as comfortable.

But that is beside the point. All of the functions I listed are very useful to me and, in many cases, are better on the tablet than anything else. I would much rather take notes on the tablet (due to its size, battery life and touchscreen) than a notebook.

While much of this might also be able to be done on a notebook, the touchscreen makes most of this much easier... plus the iPad is thinner, lighter and has a battery life of 10+ hours.