Traveling with the iPad

Over the last 10 days, I've made two trips with the iPad. The flights ranged from an 23 minutes to 4 hours.

How did it do? In a word? Brilliant. Here are my observations in no particular order:

1. The battery was MORE than sufficient for a day of travel. On my first day, I had a 4 hour flight, then a layover, then a 23 minute flight. Afterward, I met up with my family who proceeded to monopolize the device for about 4 hours. I was still left with about 39% battery life at the end of all that.
2. The younger faction of my family was intensely interested in using the iPad, but then again so was my father and he is 30 years older than I. 
3. On the various flights, I used the iPad for reading, playing games and watching a TV shows. It was very easy to view in a variety of lighting conditions, including bright sunlight.
4. One one flight, there were at least 2 other iPads. The users of each were women and were aged about mid 40's and upper 50's.
5. It was great that I never needed to take the iPad out of my bag for airport security. It's enough work to take the work laptop out.
6. The Apple case continues to hold up well and makes it easy to prop the device up in a variety of angles. This was helpful for watching video. 

Overall, I think I've found my newest best friend for traveling. It still is a little heavy for pure book reading, but I suspect I'll get used to it. It is much for flexible as a device, especially since I was so used to traveling with either the laptop or the iPhone. This slots neatly in between.