Christmas Is Coming

Are you like me -- salivating over some of the new "necessities" that didn't exist last year. Are you leaving hints around the house? Does every other sentence end with "...you know I could do that with a ..."?

The iPad is the one that's piqued my imagination this year. My mind says "...you can't live another day without one of those"; and the logical side of my brain says "...if you had one what would you do with it".

The left and right sides of my brain wage war for a while, with the arguement ending with "...I sure would love to have one of those...".

What's my assessment of the iPad? One side of my brain argues it's the best thing since sliced bread -- something you'll continuously use. The other side responds that I'll get it, use it for a week and then relegate it to the stack of devices I've gotten every year for the last "n" years.

My granddaughter got an iPod Touch for her birthday earlier this month. She spent the weekend with us this past weekend and I spent more than a little bit of time with the iPod in my hands. My reaction to the device was that it's a great device that can almost replace a computer. It's great for sending and receiving email, accessing the Internet and playing games. It's powerful and fast.

Another reality -- it's too darned small or my eyes are too darned bad! The other thing that bothered me was that it has WiFi but can't send and receive notes or access the Internet unless you're in a hotspot. Kudos to my Blackberry.

The iPad solves the major size problem -- it's big enough to read and can be used as a book reader. But which makes more sense for a lightweight device -- the iPad or a Netbook? That's a full function computer, excepting the excellent book reader component, that's been shrunk in size to the point where the keyboard can be cumbersome. It's also considerably less expensive than the iPad.

This is only one of the "toys". I heard this morning that there are going to be some really good prices on devices this year -- like WalMart having a 32" flat screen TV for $200.00. And it's not a Black Friday special where each store has exactly .6 devices on sale.

I'm learning to keep my wishlist realistic and then to analyze whether my "want" is a kneejerk reaction or for a device that I'll really find useful for more than a week!