I gave into temptation on Sunday and picked up an iPad at Apple’s Regent Street store in London. I have to admit I was somewhat hesitant and almost ducked out the queue as I approached the front. A few days on and I’ve been using the device extensively. My laptop and Eee PC don’t even have a look in when it comes to catching up on RSS feeds, browsing the web or even typing emails.

Probably my favourite experience so far has been reading the complementary copy of Winnie the Pooh in the iBook reader which is free to download from the app store. The book looks glorious with lovely full colour images accompanying the text. I’m still not sure if I’m ready to trade in paper books for this thing just yet but the experience is very pleasant and my eyes seemed to have survived the first chapter unharmed. Unfortunately it seems I need a separate app to load PDFs onto the device. The most popular at the moment appears to be GoodReader but the interface is a little clunky in the current version.

By far the majority of my time is being spent in Safari. The browser is fast and the screen is the perfect size for keeping up with the news or Google Reader while reclining on the sofa. There is already is pretty decent WordPress app which I have used to tap out a couple of posts. It could definitely use a few improvements, the addition of formatting options and perhaps a way to view stats which relies on Flash in the web version but it’s usable none the less. For video YouTube plays videos nicely embedded in pages rather than switching to a separate app. In addition Vimeo and BBC iPlayer have Flash-free, iPad friendly videos.

Apps like the Guardian’s Eyewitness Photo App show that there is plenty of scope for creating truly beautiful content and it’s going to be interesting to see how the device grows as more apps hit the store in the coming months. So far it’s my favourite device for watching short videos, reading online content and even writing blog posts and emails.