Just over a week ago my wife got me an iPad for my birthday and Fathers Day. Isn’t she awesome?! I’ve been playing with it every chance I get and I think the iPad is an amazing device and it’s just getting started.

When the iPad first came out, a lot of people said it was just a big iPod Touch. Sure, it’s similar, but it’s so much more. The screen size alone makes a huge difference. You have no idea how small an iPhone or iPod Touch really is until you play with an iPad. It makes me look at my iPod Touch and think ‘how can I even use this?’

Another great thing about the screen size is that everything look so good. Upon firing up AccuWeather, the icons are beautiful and the presentation is fantastic. Apps can become so much more than they are on the iPhone as more screen real estate makes a big difference.

The iPad also makes me feel as if I’m Tom Cruise from the Minority Report. You know, when he’s swiping screens left and right and clicking on things all in the air. I walk by my desk, swipe the screen and click on an app and it makes me feel like I’m from the future.

There are some downsides, as with any gadget. The virtual keyboard is great, but you’ll still type with your thumbs. If you want to write a paper, or long blog post, I’d suggest getting a bluetooth keyboard or the USB adapter.

Strangely enough, the F and J keys on the iPad keyboard have the little lines on them just like regular keyboards so your fingers know where to be, except you can’t feel them. Odd.

Also iPhone apps run, but run in iPhone size. So Tweetie Twitter works, but you don’t get to take advantage of the whole iPad screen. Sure, you can enlarge the app to 2x the size, but the quality is less as it just stretches the app bigger. More companies need to create iPad versions of their apps as the iPhone versions just don’t do the iPad justice.

Then there is charging. I’m not sure how new your Mac has to be, but I haven’t found one yet that will charge my iPad when plugged into USB. Instead, it must be plugged into the wall.

Overall I love the iPad. It’s fast, does pretty much everything I want, and works great as a little laptop. Especially when my iPod Touch was a first generation so just having sound built into the device is a huge feature for me. It’d be even better if it had a camera, but I think it’d feel awkward taking pictures with the iPad.

I think the iPad will only get better and more and more apps get created for it. There are lots of iPad apps out there, but there are also a lot of publishers that haven’t updated their iPhone apps to take full advantage of the iPad screen.

To me, the iPad is an entertainment system. I can play games, watch movies, go online and stay connected with everyone and I just love it.