There’s a lot of buzz going around the internets about the new Apple product, iPad. This tablet computer is suppose to be the next best thing to the iPhone, but is it really? I mean, it is a larger iPhone/iPod touch and it can have 3G wireless connection… so why wouldn’t it be great? There are a few reasons why I don’t think it’s worth the money.

I’m going to give the Cons first:

• There is no USB port installed! You need a little dongle that plugs into the iPad to get a USB attachment. Going to lose that in the couch with the Apple remote…
• There is no way to change the battery yourself. This is the a full-body aluminum casing and there is no way to get to the battery but to take it apart.
• There is no way to change the hard drive with out taking apart the iPad.
• It only comes with 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of solid state hard drive space.
• Programs can’t run in the background, so multi-tasking is out of the equation.
• It cost $130.oo more for a 3G data card installed… not only are you paying 200x the normal price for this adapter but you have to pay the $30/month for unlimited 3G access (or $15/month for 250MB/month… oh what a deal…) to AT&T.
• It doesn’t come with headphones.
• There’s no mic.
• There’s no camera.
• No Adobe Flash integrated on the browser yet… wtf.
• Low power processor that is only 1 Ghz.

The Pros:

• It’s light at 1.5-1.6 pounds
• It can run iPhone apps that you purchased already.
• Simple interface design… same as the iPhone
• Up to 10 hours of battery life.
• High Resolution screen
• The developer community is excellent and there should be some interesting apps coming to iPad only.
• Play movies that are purchased through the iTunes store.

As you can see, I don’t think the $499 (minimum) price tag is worth it. This thing needs a lot of improvements before I consider purchasing one. Since the unibody design has been released on most Apple products, I refuse to purchase any of them. They may have great hardware and software, but if I can’t upgrade things myself I don’t want it. I’m a tech at heart and I’ve built my own computers, so I know how to save money in upgrades and not waste it on over priced memory or hard drives.

I’ve read a few reviews and I understand that this is not suppose to be a full-powered PC but a simple task-oriented PC, but if I’m paying up-the-wazoo for this computer, I should have the ability to enhance the performance to my needs. Maybe I want to edit movies, built websites, and play WoW with out the computer lagging or taking 5 years to encode a media piece. I can only imagine if WoW was released on a multi-touch tablet PC…OMG!!

Let me know what you think about the iPad. I’m up for suggestions… maybe it will convince me to purchase one.

**All images on this post belong to Apple Inc.