I'm thinking about replace my (practically defunct) home laptop with an iPad instead of a new laptop. Opinions?

I mostly use it for web, email, vids, etc. And I schlep my work laptop home all the time anyway so I would have that as an option if I need to do something more complex. But I wonder if there are considerations I'm not thinking of?

I will wait for the new release which hopefully will be in April as rumored - my bonus comes in March so I'm planning to hold off at least that long anyway.

Watching vids could be a problem.

A good rule of thumb for computers is that you always need more power and capability than you think. A computer that appears to have exactly what you need and nothing more is almost certain to lack something critical to you.

brenda,

I like my ipad a lot, but it doesn't really replace any of my computers - home or work.

My recommendation is for you to walk in to an apple store (or best buy - I guess they are going to get a genius bar sometime soon) and check out the macbook air 11" or 13". A lot of tech reporters really think they are groovy and it is light enough that you might really like it.

I have travelled more than once with just my iPad. I spent 3 weeks working on a ship and my laptop came out of the bag once for about 20 minutes. Everything else was done on my iPad. I routinely use my iPad around the house and leave all the computers back in the office.

As a data point, the things that drive me from the iPad to the laptop are: whitefonted discussion here, webomics with alt-text, and flash dependent web sites. The only videos I watch are from iTunes, DirecTV, EyeTV, or YouTube, but they look great.

The 11" air is awesome. I want one like whoa and steal ND's constantly.

OK, guys...I have 2 USB ports on my emachine laptop, and I think they are fouled up. One's too loose, and the other one is too...whatever...when I try to plus something in, it won't "catch." I think I broke them. Bad me.

This sucks hard, because I cannot sync my touch.

Can I take my laptop in somewhere and have them looked at and possibly replaced? Anyone know about how much that would cost, or how hard it is?

Erin, I dunno. But I'll just throw some thoughts out there....

I'm guessing the USB ports are soldered directly to the motherboard. Assuming that's the case:

• Some places might tell you the whole motherboard would need to be replaced. That would probably cost too much to be worth it.

• Maybe the USB ports could be repaired or removed and new ones soldered on. The difficulty of this would depend on how close together everything is on the motherboard. Know anyone who's good at soldering?

So, maybe you'd want to avoid repair places such as Best Buy, and find a small repair shop that's run by a skilled electronics guy?

But it wouldn't hurt to take it to some repair places (or call around) and get estimates.

I did a brief google - this has some suggestions to try first before having major surgery done: [link]

Erin, I just talked to my boss. He thinks it might be very difficult to replace the USB ports, as modern motherboards are assembled by machine and have everything close together (especially on a laptop) and they're not really meant to be repaired by hand. But he can't say for sure without looking at the motherboard.