Ideapad

From my post on aiaio:

I'm no gadget prognosticator, and as an Apple shareholder, I hope I'm wrong. But this looks like it's going to be a bit of a niche product, at least at first.

I'm guessing that the iPad will have a fantastic user experience, be a wonder to behold and use, but give very little practical reason for purchase. At $629 and up for the 3G model, I'm certainly not giving up my Kindle thoughts, since I already have an iPad Nano (you know it as the iPhone) in my pocket to do the iPad's heavy lifting. And I didn't even mention the keyboard dock. What the heck?

I'm not selling my AAPL just yet, though. People had their doubts about the iPod, and look how that worked out. And who knows? Maybe there's a huge market for people that want iPhones without giving up their non-smartphones.

I suppose the problem is that I, like everyone else, was waiting to be OMG BLOWN AWAY by a new device that, in many ways, I already own. Taken on its own, the iPad is a nice device, if not a worldwide game-changer at first blush. The real news is that Apple's hype machine got the best of us all.