[peanut]

I might have to take back what I've said in my earlier post about the iPad being useless as I've just borrowed one to prove a point and I can say I've lost that point.

Having used one and using for the things I would use the PC for in general, I can say I've been converted. Watching films (via air video), iplayer etc, and browsing has been quite a pleasure and I know I could tailor an iPad to my own personal use quite easily. If I owned a hat I think I would have eaten it by now.

Saying that, I wouldn't know if a low end (the average laptop) would be enough to go with the ipad for things like on the fly streaming/converting, I've yet to try that out. It seems that to get the best out of the iPad I'm glad my PC isn't just 'average'.

As for laptops doing what desktops can do for things like gaming, well I don't think that's the case, unless you pay that premium amount of extra money that's never going to happen, unless you like playing games like farmville or other low end crappy games. And if you are a gamer, unless you have access to crazy money and can throw sense out of the window, desktops still have and will have the edge for gaming and video editing.

A mate of mine has a m17x2 alienware laptop, just under £4k worth, yet a desktop PC under £800 will still beat it. No brainer really.