Need to get a laptop - would an Ipad tablet be a good choice?

Use a netbook look for the dual core versions with the atom n550 and the nvidia ion2. They cost around 400 - 500 dollar or as much as an ipad the difference is that you can chose between 10" - 12" screens you get a keypad, you get windows, you cn multitask windows prograls and even play some decent older games.

If you want a tablet for the sake of a tablet and also want to type some don't go for the ipad. There is only one good tablet for that and it is the archeos101 You can put on an external keyboard to this one and can put it on the television. It is 200 dollar cheaper then a similar iphone without 3g. And it runs android what is in my eyes better for general stuff then the ios.

Personally i'd go for the netbook an asus eee with 12" screen and nvidia ion2. It has the power of a great laptop of 4 - 5 years ago. It can play full hd movies, games like fallout3 it can multitask and if you want to use it for decent browsing and typing it is just superior in user experience for the same price as an entry level ipad.

They also don't weigh much at 5 - 7 pounds. More then a tablet but light enough to carry around whole day.

iPad is not a laptop. mid-2011 Goog OS netbooks will be sold by Acer, Dell, Toshiba. Goog OS does not need to be booted, configured, installed. There will be no crashes, no freezing, no adware, no viruses. Goog OS is the 1st consumer quality computer, like a cell phone, treo, vcr, or pvr.

Personally I wouldn't get an iPad instead of a laptop because I imagine that it's tough to write a long document or use Photoshop or a drawing application on an iPad. If you're committed to Mac, the cheapest MacBook goes for $1000 and has a 2.4 Ghz processor, 2 GB RAM and a 250 GB hard drive. The Mac Air laptops also start at $1000 and they're super light and thin, but they are slower, have less RAM, and have flash memory instead of a hard drive (same as iPad). If you're going to use the device you buy to read email, check Facebook, browse the web, read documents, stream video and watch video files, then an iPad may be perfect for you.

Toshiba has $500 AMD K25 Dual Core 12" Windows 7 laptops for $500.

Depends whether you want a toy to play and look cool with or whether you've got real work to do. If the former get an ipad, if the latter get a laptop.

The ipad is actually a fantastic productivity tool, though it's absolutely not a laptop replacement. Indeed, you can't even update the software without a computer.