Hands-On Impressions Of Apple's iPad

GI media editor Nick Ahrens is at the Apple event in San Francisco, and he got a chance to play around with the hotly-anticipated iPad. Here's what he had to say:

"The iPad is super-thin and the screen is awesome. It's like an iPhone screen but your finger doesn't move across quite as smoothly. It feels really good in the hands, it's ridiculously light. It's comfortable, responsive, fast, and the screen is gorgeous. Typing feels good and very responsive. Need for speed works really well, phenomenally well. It's a huge improvement. Unlike the iPhone's accelerometer, there's no delay when switching to landscape view, it's an instantaneous switch."

Nick continues, "It doesn't feel like you're holding a giant iPhone, it feels like you're holding a really nice digital picture frame. The new email app feels like Mail on a Mac. YouTube is greatly improved, it's more like their website and can support HD. All of the games are the iPhone versions, but it scales them up just like the rest of the apps. There will be native apps as well, like the new YouTube. Most likely native games as well, as EA and Gameloft spoke about making games exclusively for iPad. Considering I was in a room with music and a ton of people talking, the standard speakers still came through clearly. When I was watching someone else play with it, I noticed some glare from the angle I was at.  I didn't notice any when I was playing it, however. The screen is very bright and LED-backlit, like turning an iPhone's brightness all the way up."

In terms of cost, Nick commented that the iPad is "priced very aggressively." What do you think? Is $499 for the cheapest version too much to ask for this new device?