Ask me in a year how sturdy the construction is. It is so far much better than the other devices I tried (no flexing under its own weight like the PD-N, and it doesn't feel like off-brand tupperware like the Nook). My kids so far haven't broken it, and I feel perfectly fine letting my 2 and 3 year old kids play with it (I do have a screen protector on it).

My school's IT dept. says that the iPad is fine for their private student/faculty internet access. As a note, they make all Apple laptops (regardless of OS version) and any XP/Vista/Windows 7 or Linux machine needs to go through a personal vetting process where they make sure your machine is clean and up to date with all software on it. If it doesn't pass their scrubbing process (which is repeated anywhere from every 3 business days to a maximum of 2 weeks depending on a risk assessment) no school internet for you _period_.

I am well aware of the risks of malware, and I looked into Jailbreaking mine (at the moment I have no need to; only reason I would have was for divx playback but there is a VLC port/app for it). I do wish it had a built in USB or SD card slot for offloading or quickly sharing some files, but frankly I've not seen much practical need for these. I like the fact that it does not have a camera, part of my lab classes involves working in a cadaver laboratory and we aren't allowed with any camera devices in there. So my phone and my laptop end up staying in a locker; but I can bring the iPad in to work as a dissection recorder. I'm going to look into voice controls (over a BT headset would be nice) for it in these cases but in the meantime I bought a cheap stylus for it off of Amazon.

I will never make any pretenses that this is a PC replacement. It can do a lot of task-offloading for a PC, but it feels extremely limited in some ways - for example a lot of websites just don't work right (or they kick you to their featureless mobile versions). I despise using iTunes to back it up but I'm not all that interested in searching for alternative software to give me the same functionality - rather I just sand-boxed iTunes to its own VM with nothing else on it.

Exactly. I picked up a 32gb iPad last weekend for this reason alone.

I'd tried out the newest Kindle, Nook, Sony E-Reader, Pandigital Novel, Velocity Micro Cruz Reader over about a month. I've returned each of them (other than the VMCR, that one I borrowed for a day from someone who bought it off of NewEgg). I've been waiting, and waiting, and waiting, for the Notion Adam to come out (or at least make some progress that is noteworthy) but I got fed up with them - if they were (or are) serious about their business, they'd fix their website.

Kindle, Sony and Nook had refresh rates that were far below what I felt I needed to use my textbooks adequately - each page flip was like hitting a wall. The Pandigital was a piece of crap with a crappy UI that was easily the slowest implementation of Android I've ever seen. When you removed their stock UI and put a better one on it, it was massively improved but still just slow and difficult to use. The VMCR felt the same way, just... sort of slapped together with left over bits of phones that were old when they were created.

So I bought an iPad. I felt dirty; I've been entirely Apple free since I got out of elementary school in the late 80s and I despise most of their products - for example; it is my opinion that the iPhone is a toy (give me a BB any day), the hardware is ridiculously over priced (or their software is 'valued' outside of sanity's grasp). With the iPad though... I'd played with my brother in law's iPad on a flight for a few hours and thought it was neat, but not a great gadget. I still feel this way but its got one massive element above the others mentioned that is damned impressive for school.

If you scan the textbook in as nice HQ jpeg's and put them into a .CBR format - it's like working with the actual textbook, and in addition to the iPad/iTouch it works on any computer I've come across (with the free readers available). Fast refresh rates; great color on the images. No, it's not completely word-indexed in this format - you can't just search for a specific term and have the program find it for you - but what you can do is use the textbook like its meant to be used. I took 100+lbs of textbooks (medical textbooks for one semester) and scanned them after cutting off the bindings. Total file size is something like 4gb for all of them in color and decent resolution. If you buy used textbooks, it's even cheaper. I literally go to most classes with just my iPad and a 25 cent college-ruled notebook.

The $5-600 for the iPad is a much better expense (again, in my opinion) than the cost of pretty much any medical treatment for a destroyed back.

I was in Yosemite for the last week, and my blackberry had no connection (T-Mobile). My friends had the rest of the big carriers. AT&T (iPhone) had antenna coverage but dropped almost every call within the first minute after connection. Verizon (Razr2) would show no connectivity but we could still make calls out and have them stay connected for 10-15 minutes (we ended up calling our wives/families in shifts on the verizon phone). The Sprint (Samsung flip) phone had data and sms/mms but couldn't make a call - even though it was showing full connectivity.

Hardest thing for me is the payment rates between them. The Verizon phone with 900 minutes and no SMS/MMS was $115 a month. The Sprint phone was $79.99 a month, 400 minutes including an unlimited data plan, AT&T was $100+ and my phone (T-Mobile) is $80 a month for two phones with 700 minutes and unlimited data/mms/sms/email.

Anecdotal evidence, but from my brother at the Grand Canyon, on the surface, everyone had connection (same situation, bunch of carriers) except for the MetroPCS/Cricket users. In the Canyon AT&T showed full connectivity but would not connect, Verizon still connected as did Sprint and T-Mobile, but all 3 dropped consistently.

My biggest concern is El Paso. At any random moment I lose data connectivity as I am randomly connected to an antenna in Mexico that charges roaming data on my plan (I have my phone setup to disconnect data if it detects it will be roaming for data). Also, there are periods of no signal for all 4 carriers across parts of Texas from El Paso into San Antonio, but getting outside of Houston towards Louisiana and it is actually worse.

I worked for a property holding facility (primarily long term storage of vehicles for evidence holds) for a local police department and they had extremely strict rules for data entry. Everything was entered into a computer and a ledgerbook, and they had to match because either could at anytime be required for court purposes.

We had to: cross 7's, Z's, 0's had to be slashed starting and ending outside the circle, underscore 5's and 6's (to differentiate between S's and G's), I's had to have a 3 stroke method (top horizontal, vertical, bottom horizontal), and everything had to be in uppercase block letters.

A new-hire that was replacing me (I got a better job) asked why we had to use the ledgerbook since we had this computer system for the same thing, and my boss asked him in return if he'd ever seen a book stop working when the power went out (we had battery backups for the lights, flashlights, and hurricane lamps). They had volumes going back to the 1920's with items that were still in storage.

End result of all the rules were such that I lost most of my ability to do cursive beyond my signature, but I can print-type with all those little rules faster than I could ever do cursive.

I was on Verizon for years as all of my family and majority of friends were also on it (the in-network calling was nice). It took me about 10 minutes on the phone with them to block all SMS. I still got one or two a month at cost from Verizon themselves; their official line was that they were allowed to bill me for their advertising. After 3 years of this and timed conveniently with my wife's phone going out of contract, we dumped them.

With T-Mobile, when I was setting up service with them the blackberry support group asked if I wanted SMS blocking. I agreed. An hour after the phone was setup, we got a text message on my wife's phone from some pizza place in NY advertising a deal. I called T-Mobile, and they halved my first months bill because of it ($40 off for one message). Since then, no text messaging at all, not even advertisements from T-Mobile.

I was honestly surprised they went to that extent as we had ordered the phones through Amazon, and got two phones for free + a $50 Visa pre-paid card.