The iPad has actually become necessary for me...
I do a lot of tech support at my school, but many of the sites I use (including this one) are blocked by our district. I can authorize them, but it has to be one-by-one, meaning each forum post I want to look at. I could talk to the IT people at the district, but in the past that's been a painful experience.
So I use my iPad to access all that stuff. It's easy to carry to people's classrooms, the screen is a usable size for browsing (unlike the iPhone's), and I can use it to watch movies/tv when working in my classroom.
The other tech guy and I used to talk all the time about getting a 3g card for a computer to get around the blocking, but the ipad is the perfect solution.