The Ipad I bought the GF was intended to be used as a browser replacement for her 2 year old laptop which does now feel horribly slow (the ipad is a lot faster in loading pages, can actually play 1080p youtube pages etc etc) I agree that the ipad is a worthwhile replacement for the social browsing and skyping requirements of about 95% of people. And that a home computer/laptop would only really be needed for work based activities like typing essays, CV's, complicated emails and research related browsing (gathering papers etc) etc etc.