You won't be able to add additional storage. In a its cheapest form, it has 16GB of storage. That cannot be expanded. Think how many pictures and music you currently have on your netbook or laptop.

It won't play music on the web. Last.FM, Facebook, YouTube, Hyves, MySpace and a myriad of other websites use Flash to let you listen to music. "The best way to experience the web" is as a deaf person.

You won't be able to connect to network or USB printers. This rules out the iPad as a business tool. Unless you absolutely never have to print anything out.

You won't be able to connect to external storage devices. You won't be able to connect to your Network Storage or other laptops - Windows, Mac or Linux.

It has no camera, so there won't be any videochat. Almost all current netbooks and laptops have a built-in webcam. And you won't be able to add an external webcam because, you guessed it, no USB support. There's also no mention of a microphone so even skyping won't work. Oh, and there's no USB support so no USB microphones either.

It won't play video on the web. Sure, it will have its built-in YouTube app, but since it doesn't have multitasking, that means you will have to stop browsing and watch the movie. When the movie is finished, you'll have to start the browser again. Manually. That's acceptable for a Smartphone, but not for a tablet. And you certainly won't be able to watch MySpace video. Or Vimeo. Or Blip.TV. All of which are very good and valid video sites with extremely good content.

There's no easy way to type text on the tablet. And you can't add a USB keyboard. Because it has no USB. So don't expect to type long mails to your mother - which you could just Skype if you had a webcam. Or even a built-in microphone.

For those of you who think the absence of Flash is good because "you browse with Flash turned off anyway". That is not entirely true for most. Most run with a Flash blocker which allows them to turn Flash ON every once in a while to experience additional content on a website. But you don't even have that choice. There is no Flash. And I highly doubt that it will have HTML5 video support.

So there. No iPad for me. I'll stick to my Acer Netbook for couch surfing.

---

I like the way it feels and like most of how it handles - and how it worked right out of the bo ... Hold on, it didn't work right out of the box!

I spent the first few minutes trying to figure out how to get my SIM card into the iPhone. There were no apparent openings. In fact, it looked like it wasn't meant to be opened - ever. Of course, I was intrigued by the little slot on top of the iPhone that LOOKED like it could be pried open with a paperclip. It wasn't until 2 hours later that I noticed the illustration on the packaging the iPhone's documentation came in. And then I also noticed that the small bit of iron(y) that was stuck to the inside of the documentation's packaging was actually intended to open the SIM tray with. Ah well.

Anyway, once the SIM card was in I turned the iPhone on! Me and my wife huddled together to savour this moment. Meanwhile, House M.D. was talking down to someone on the television. I pushed the button on top of the iPhone and behold! Nothing much happened. I got the startup screen and nothing else happened.

It took me a while to realise that I needed to synch the iPhone rightaway. So I plugged the iPhone in the Powerbook, downloaded a new iPhone firmware and a new iTunes version and was all set - only 15 minutes later. ^sarcasm The iPhone started synching and I wasall set. Woohoo!

And so, to this day, I run around with the iPhone, showing it off to everyone I know and being generally happy with it. Except for a few things that bug me.

It bothers me that I have to slide to answer a call when I can simply press a "button" to end that same call. It bothers me that I can't simply delete a few text messages from a person but instead have to either throw out all of the text messages that person sent me or keep them all. It's ridiculous! Of course I want to keep the little confessions and indecencies my wife texts me - but I can do without the "Leek or cauliflower" messages.

And I could do with a slightly more enabled calendar. As it is right now, I can download the information from iCal - oh don't get me started on iCal which doesn't automatically refresh my Google Calendars - but I can't edit the information. I can't move or delete appointments that synched from iCal. I'm guessing MobileMe would solve that problem but I don't want MobileMe at 149 something a year when I only want to synch between my MBP and my iPhone. And suppose I didn't have iCal - then I still would've liked to import my Google Calendar.

And the iPhone doesn't have a Flash - although the 2MP camera is doing a rather decent job at taking indoor pictures but it sucks at taking pictures at night or in badly lit environments - like a club. So, while I'm the light of the party with my iPhone strobe app, I'm still left in the dark because all the pictures I take that night will be ... blurry at least.

And perhaps the biggest thing I miss is a "running applications", eh ... application. Something that will show me which applications are currently running. Like a cmd-tab or alt-tab function.

Despite all the little annoyances I wrote down above, it is still a great piece of technology. Best 19.96 EURO I ever spent.

Overall rating: 9!

PS: Adobe, HURRY UP getting that iPhone Flash version out there.

---