The Apple iPad was one of the most eagerly anticipated product launches in recent years, and it didn't disappoint. Hundreds of pages were written extolling the virtues of this sleek new gadget, and inevitably, it went to the top of people's wish lists. But the iPad does have some drawbacks, and you should be clear what these are before you go ahead and buy one.

First let's look at the good aspects of the iPad: It allows you to surf the web. The built-in Apple iWord 2010 software allows you to read and create spreadsheets, documents, and presentations. It has a built-in ebook reader, allowing you to read books bought from Apple's iBooks store, as well as any ebooks that are in the ePub format. You can use your iPad to play games, watch movies and videos. Apps specially written for the iPad allow you to read your favourite newspapers on it too – and the apps often render the newsites in a much more user-friendly way than the traditional news websites.

Apple have conceived the iPad to be an all-purpose tablet computer, which can do everything a PC or game player can do but is easily portable.

Now the drawbacks: The iPad did not use the revolutionary iInk technology which has anti-glare properties and allows you to read for hours withour tiring. By contrast, the Amazon Kindle and Sony Digital Reader, both have it. The iPad is backlit, which means you can read in bed, but whether you will want to for any length of time remains to be seen. If you are mainly after an ebook reader, then you might be better off sticking with the Kindle or the Sony ereader, both of which are considerably cheaper than the iPad.

The iPad has many attractions for business people on the go, especially as it comes with office software and is much smaller than a laptop – but a big downside is that it has no built-in USB port. This makes it hard to transfer documents to and from your PC, though one way to work around this is to upload your documents into Google docs (which supports all document formats), and which means you can reassess these from your office PC using the cloud. Apple have also made available docks with USB ports, but you have to pay extra for these. If you can put this all on expenses, then go ahead and buy the iPad – it will certainly save you from the hassle of lugging a heavy laptop with you.

The iPad also allows you to play games, but hardened gamers might wish to stick to the PSP or perhaps buy Sony's latest portable games platform, the Sony Dash, which allows you to browse the internet, listen to music and watch videos as well as play games. The Sony Dash is cheaper than the iPad as it doesn't have the ebook reader nor the office software. But if you are a gamer who also wants a device that allows you to do your homework and surf the net as well, then you might want to consider the iPad.

Finally the iPad does not support Adobe Flash, which might depreciate many people's browsing experience as so many websites use flash these days. One upside of not supporting Flash though, is that the iPad is much faster than all the iPad killers that have emerged. If speed is more important to you than having adverts visible when you browse the net, then go ahead and order the iPad.

The Apple iPad officially goes on sale in the UK on 28th May from the Apple store. However, pre orders have been so white hot that people ordering now can only get the iPad delivered after a few weeks.  
 

This is in spite of the fact that prices in the UK are higher than in the United States (the 16GB wi-fi version is £429, the 32GB wi-fi version costs £499 and the 64Gb wi-fi version costs £599. For the ipad with Wi Fi plus 3G, add £100 to each unit.)  Other outlets, such as Argos and John Lewis are not selling the iPad yet, as they haven't been granted stock yet. It's not known when they will be stocking it - it all depends on whether Apple can get their supplier to produce more units. 
 

So what do you do if you want to badly want to buy an ipad? Well, one option is to look at Ebay. Many Ebay sellers in the USA are willing to ship to the UK. Before bidding, check the shipping costs. Also check the exchange rate - the pound sterling has been falling against the dollar in recent weeks, which may mean that your iPad ends up more expensive than it otherwise would have been.
 

In addition, many people are unsure if they want to buy the iPad right now - should they wait for the next generation version, should they look at the competitors? The iPad has certain drawbacks - it can't cope with multi-tasking (so you can't listen to music and browse the net at the same time). It has no camera, no web-cam, and no USB port. (The absence of the USB port will make it difficult for business users to transfer documents to and from their PCs to the iPad). The web browser doesn't handle Flash (which means that when you view a webpage with flash on it using the iPad, all you see is a big blue cube).  It only lets you use Apple's Safari web brower - so if you are a fan of Firefox or Chrome, you are out of luck. Competitors have taken notice. We know for instance that Hewlett Packard are intending to bring out the HP Slate later this year that will have features that the iPad does not, such as a built-in web-cam (which will allow you to do video conferencing, plus normal camera for still photos, plus it can handle flash on websites (which the iPad can't). Archos and Joojoo are also putting out tablet PC's that they hope will be iPad killers.

For more information on all the alternatives to the iPad plus information on where you can buy the ipad online, click buy ipad. We list all the sellers who currently have the iPad in stock.