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.