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.