Okay, so I may be one of the last people to get and review an iPad. I’m going to point out what *I* think is great about it and how *I* use it. Also, in the future, I’ll be posting useful apps that I use on my iPad.

I will fully admit when I first saw the iPad, I questioned why I would ever want one. Probably the usual thoughts, “Why would I want something that’s just a big phone?” or “it’s too small to be useful as a laptop” or “I’ll hate typing on it”. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

The iPad has become indispensible for me. I have it with me nearly everywhere I go. Oddly enough, and even though Traveler works perfectly on it, I don’t really use it for email. I think I’ve become too accustomed to checking and responding to email on my Blackberry. However, my iPad has definitely become my replacement for quick internet searches. Got a question? No more waiting for my laptop to “wake up”, just turn on the iPad and surf.

The iPad has also become the world’s largest GPS driving navigation device for me. No, I don’t have turn by turn audio, but it still works really great getting directions and displaying them on the map.

The iPad definitely wins out on family entertainment. A few low cost or no cost games and I’ve got a great device for entertaining my kids while we wait, at a restaurant, at the doctor’s office, in the car, etc. I’ve also got a terrific device for distracting myself while I wait at the doctor’s office, in the car, etc. Book readers, feed readers and streaming TV round out the entertainment category (more on all of these in future posts).

I also use the iPad for quick checks of social networks like Facebook and Twitter. As well as world’s largest iPod. No, I’m not carrying the iPad with me jogging or anything, but it’s great to prop up and play some music while I’m cooking. Of course, cooking a recipe that I’ve got displayed on my iPad.

So, clearly, it’s way more than a phone.

“Too small to be useful as a laptop” – this is true and false. I definitely couldn’t use this in my day to day work. I’m too much of a PC-girl and need to right-click a mouse. However, with a few key apps, you can easily access your work. With the iPad, I’ve been able to easily fix problems from the parking lot of a doctor’s office without having to carry around my laptop (which is a monster of a laptop) or try to find a wireless network (I’ve got 3G for the iPad). That’s great news for me, as I could go on a short vacation, bring my iPad and know I could still help out at work if necessary without taking my laptop with me.

“I’ll hate typing on it” – this one is a tiny bit true, but mostly false. I quickly adapted to typing on the iPad. Some applications that have only an iPhone interface are a bit difficult as the “keyboard” is very small, but for the most part typing is quite easy. I don’t have a lot of love for iPad’s now infamous autocorrect as it almost never corrects to what I intended. However, I did find out that after you “deny” the autocorrect a few times, it will stop autocorrecting. For example, I frequently have to type in an email address, which includes “runningnotes”. Now because those are both words, the iPad kept “correcting” it by adding a space. After a couple of times where I rejected the “correction” and the iPad now lets “runningnotes” stand as is.

How quickly I went from doubter to fan girl. It’s only a matter of time before I want a Mac Book Pro, isn’t it?