Good article! I think I'll go ahead and throw in my two cents.
Recently my laptop broke down (first gen intel MBP). There was hope though! I have recently graduated from college and graduation money and gifts were starting to come in. I told my parents of my plight and they told me not to worry... Naturally I assumed that they would get me a new laptop as a gift.
When they showed up in town I was naturally excited, because I haven't had a new tech toy in roughly four years (thanks college). The box they gave me was curiously smaller than what I was expecting. Long story short, I got an iPad.
So I was presented with a tough choice. Ask my parents to return the gift and use that money and put it towards a new laptop, or accept it and work it into my electronic routine? I thought about it over night and made a list of things that I do normally with a laptop. The only thing on that list that I couldn't do with an iPad was gaming. So with that rationalizing (and a good mixture of fear and preemptive guilt about being rude) I stuck with the iPad.. And it's been pretty good to me so far.
I've got a job right now working as essentially a glorified secretary, and I have to write up reports and memos pretty constantly. As a result I've gotten decent enough at typing to where I don't even need the keyboard for things that are less than 800-1000 words or so. For about the period of a month, I really needed to carry the keyboard with me everywhere, which isn't actually that big of a deal. Also, I still have yet to change the batteries on it (AA), and I've been using it pretty constantly for a month now. However, I couldn't imagine using this thing (typing on it write now) for anything other than word processing.
I'm about to go on two big trips, one to Maryland and then to Japan for a couple of weeks. I don't have a 3G model, but I fortunately got the massive 64GB hard drive and because of this article I'm making sure to load it up with enough offline entertainment just in case I can't go online. Sadly, my only computer is a Dell from 2006 running a p4 and ripping a single DVD can take the better part of 3 hours...
P.S. As for making the ipad more productive, I honestly would recommend buying the keyboard. While typing out a comment on a blog isn't too stressful on the digits, writing out 10 page reports can get tedious and error filled. Investing in Pages is also a really good idea.
For an idea that doesn't give Apple more money, I recommend getting a briefcase or an attaché case. It works as a non-toolish way to carry it around (until of course you whip out your WSJ/NYT and your iPad) and also acts as a good way to either block the Sun, elevate/angle the screen, easily store the various accessories (keyboard, wall charger, what have you), and is acceptably professional. Once you are out of college and in an office, using a backpack or messenger bag looks kinda juvenile (and creepy after a certain point).
P.P.S: Using a backpack/messenger bag is ok if you bike to work, but even then one can act like a tool if you have to make sure that everyone knows that you biked to work (personal pet peeve).