Should you buy an Apple iPad now or wait ?

You probably heard a lot about iPad. Basically it is a tablet touch screen device in roughly the size of a magazine. There are three models that connect to the Internet strictly over Wi-Fi (16GB for $499, 32GB for $599, 64GB for $699) and three that use a combination of Wi-Fi and AT&T’s 3G wireless (16GB for $629, 32GB for $729, and 64GB for $829–pay-as-you go for the data subscription). It also uses a smaller SIM card that is incompatible with existing SIM slots and vice versa.

Basically, it can be used just like the way you use a iPhone or iPod Touch. There are the apps web surfing, email, maps, music, youtube etc and there is a App Store which you can download apps via iTunes and buy music on the itunes store. Although it functions like the iPhone, you won’t be able to make phone calls (unless voip) or SMS on it. In fact, you can imagine it is more of a enlarged version of the iPod Touch for viewing documents.

As a e-book reader, the iPad provides colour illustrations compared to black and white on the most popular Amazon Kindle reader. Free public domain books are also available within the iBooks store, and any EPUB book format (including titles from Project Gutenberg and Google Books) can also be transferred to iPad via iTunes. Competing e-book software, such as the Amazon Kindle app, is also available on the iPad. In terms of battery life, the backlit colour iPad would only last you 10 hours of continuous use while the Kindle DX can last for 4 days.

If you intend to use it as a replacement of your netbook, the iPad also comes with iWork. It has 3 apps priced at USD 9.99 they include : Pages (word processing), Numbers (spreadsheets), and Keynote (presentations). iWork apps are capable of opening and editing common Office documents and saving in native or exporting them as PDF files.

While most devices like netbook comes with USB ports to transfer files in/out, the iPad does not have that. You can’t burn a CD as well. The only way to transfer files in and out of the device is via email, i-work account or save it to a shared folder. You would then require conenction by iTune from your PC/MAC to transfer the files out from your device. I am sure there would be some work around on this in the future.

So much about the functionalities of the iPad. Non US readers who have mail order the purchase through a US forwarding address should receive their iPads real soon. If you bought the WiFi only version, that would work without any problems whenever there is WiFi coverage. Those who bought the 3G version would have to wait for the local telcos to provide a compatible SIM as the 3G SIM card is different from the conventional SIM card you use on your iPhone or any 3G phones.

So will you buy it or wait for a newer version just like people skipped the original iPhone for 3GS. Discuss