One risk is CHURN.

That is - equipment sellers, ISPs and phone companies will inflict a series of slightly better, but planned obselescent notebooks/tablets/iPhone on young consumers every Christmas to suck up money while delivering only limited improvements.

Big Apple glitz advertising machines that go "bing" only slightly better.

Twelve year olds forking out $1,000 for the latest socially distracting gizmo (that will halve in price in 12 months) beware.

Pete

I've not yet played with a powerful tablet. Got a cheap one with a resistive touch screen and while I can see the potential it's not quite there. My little android phone has been my eye opener, relatively cheap and not having the same size screen or memory as the much more expensive ones but it's opened up a whole raft of useful apps's.

In particular being able to track an exercise workout on the go has given me a huge psychological boost for training. For those who've need seen that side of modern smart phones have a look at Endomondo or Runkeeper (similar features, both with a base package that's free and the option of paying a small amount for some extras).

My phone recently got a busted screen, in less than two business days I had a new screen delivered and had installed it based on some instruction video's on the web and all for less than $30. That gave me a reminder of just how powerful the internet can be, no waiting weeks for a supplier to get one in at a large price then paying someone more than the phone was worth to fit it (or tossing the phone in the bin because the repairs would cost more than the phone). Ebay and Youtube had it covered.

Some things are coming together nicely, there is wastage along the way but mostly we get to make a choice about upgrades (I'm holding off on a better tablet and watching that space) and in the mean time my Kindle is unbelievably good for reading off.

R0bert

I bought an Ipad 2 in May, mainly because I wanted to understand
what all the Apple fuss was about. I'd been put off by Steve Jobs
some decades ago, when he tried to screw consumers with His Apple
Mac, which was great, but ridiculously priced. Along came Bill Gates
at the time and broke his monopoly, for a mere 46.50$ with Windows 3.

Jobs clearly learned a great deal over the decades, including being
thrown out of his own company for a while. The Ipad is a breath of
fresh air, its reasonably priced too. Why did Jobs start to do so
well for Apple? Today the Apple series all work together to
not just provide products, but consumer solutions and relative
value for money. From music to pictures to all sorts of apps, they
all work together to provide some amazing every day solutions.

I'm not bombarded with all the adverts, as I am with many of the
other software products around. Alot of the software is dirt cheap too,
compared to say Microsoft. No wonder Apple have gone from nearly
bankrupt in the late 90s, to going straight past Microsoft.

Its only once you own an Ipad, that you start to realise how
many uses that they have.