There has been a lot hype and speculation surrounding the Apple tablet for months leading up to its launch, but is the Apple iPad the device that everyone was expecting it to be? The device that would change the mobile computing landscape as we know it?

Turns out, it is neither of the above. The iPad, from the information we have now, is nothing more than a giant iPhone, sans a camera, and the ability to make phone calls.

Sure, it's equipped with a 1GHz chip - a significant upgrade from the 512MB chip that the iPhone 3G S sports - but its potential cannot be fully realized since it's stuck with the same iPhone OS, which means you are incapable of doing any multitasking with it and can have only one app open at a time. A few other things that would have made the iPad infinitely better would be an HDMI port, USB ports, and Flash support.

Often considered as a cross between an e-reader and a netbook, there are many areas where it falls behind compared to competing products, too. For example, its battery life is much shorter than you'd find in a typical e-reader, and its processing, storage, and connectivity capabilities are nowhere near those of a netbook computer. Not to mention the price difference - you can buy a netbook and an e-reader for the price of one iPad.

Although we don't feel that Apple has outdone itself this time, to be fair, it does offer some things that the e-Reader and Netbook does not. For instance, it has a vibrant touchscreen display, GPS capability, and also looks a lot cooler than anything else you can find on the market right now. That's all that matters, right?