spuppy wrote:...Whenever I find myself having to do anything other than goofing around with facebook or browsing web pages (1 at a time), it ends up being extremely frustrating. For instance just a few weeks ago I was on the road and a friend needed me to proofread a PDF presentation for them. Switching back and forth between the email app and ibooks was incredibly laggy, and made the task more cumbersome than using even the cheapest netbook would have been. Part of it was the OS' lack of multitasking, also I assume the low amount of RAM (1GB probably would have brute-forced the lag to go away) and part was the interface itself. Tablets are fun and intuitive for some things, but it's just not the right interface for actual work yet...
On an iPad1, iBooks can slow down with dozens of ebooks loaded, particularly in the library screen upon first view. Apparently some tasks grind slowly in the background when sorting and listing files. I believe this issue is partly a cause of the perceived UI lag when switching away from iBooks. Although not towards it, at least in my experience. Certain large PDFs render slowly on GoodReader. When performing drag-and-drop to GoodReader's Apps/File Sharing/Documents silo in iTunes, file transfers can be quite slow especially on an iPadv1.
Apart from these specific issues, most popular apps are fun. The problem with spreadsheets is that finger-pointing is not precise enough for the current tablet method of tagging cells. And too many operations require moving one's hand from keyboard to touchscreen and back too many times. Voice commands for cell manipulation may solve the first, UI refinement the second.
I can agree that tablets like the iPad are best for handy, nontraditional and on-the-go media consumption and situational awareness.