Just echoing what's been said here. The iPad is an iPhone with a bigger screen -- except that trivial physical difference results in use-cases that aren't so tr

Just echoing what's been said here. The iPad is an iPhone with a bigger screen -- except that trivial physical difference results in use-cases that aren't so trivially different. Part of it has to do with frictionlessness. I don't own a personal laptop anymore. I use my iPad Air for video-editing, for Google Docs as well as for media consumption when I travel or when I'm at a coffee shop. It's so light that I can whip it out in 3 seconds, do stuff, and put it away. Because it's designed as a mobile device, battery usage is enhanced so I can use it all day without recharging -- else I can plug it into a small Anker battery pack. You can do that with an MBA too, but that's a more expensive device plus there's just a little more fuss. Power consumption is higher so you are always hunting for an outlet and there's the added weight of an AC adapter (none with the iPad) -- though I suppose these days you can charge MBA's with a larger battery pack. Caveat: programming doesn't work so well because the iPad (even with the keyboard/trackpad) has a "one-app at a time" interface, whereas with programming you need multiple windows open simultaneously. (iOS has a multi window interface but it isn't that great)