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It’s well known that the iPad is good for couch surfing or looking cool at your local Starbucks. But my decision to buy an iPad was also easily cost justified.

Call it rationalization but if it helps you get over the hump on your decision to buy one you’re welcome to it. I pro-rated my cost justification over a 1 year period of time. I bought a 32MB iPad without 3G for about $600.

Air Travel: If you travel much the iPad can be a life saver. Not only on long flights, but on short flights that turn into long flights. I had a flight from Newark to Dallas (usually about 3hrs) that turned into a 7.5 hr ordeal. Stuck in a small seat without enough space to get my laptop open, the iPad provided hours of entertainment and with the ubiquity of wifi on planes these days, easy connectivity, which allowed at least moderate productivity where there otherwise would have been none.  If you travel once a month or more this is an easy decision.

Hours flying (actual flight time): 240hrs/yr

iPad cost per hour: $2.50

Conferences: I hadn’t really thought about it until recently, but as an organizer of OpenCamp I found the device incredibly useful for having access to info without having to lug a laptop everywhere and I easily got through the day with the battery life the iPad has. I even had someone comment to me it was the first time they’d seen someone using the iPad for “actual work.” Since most will never be conference organizers but will be attendees I was impressed at how many of them I saw in the audience.

With easy access to apps like Evernote and Dropbox, the iPad is going to become very popular at conferences and for a good reason. If you go to one or two conferences a year you’ll be glad you have an iPad.

Time at conferences per year (on the floor or in sessions, I go to more than most): 300hrs (30hrs per conf/10 conferences)

iPad cost per hour: $2.00

Your Health/Working Out: I didn’t think about this one until after I got the iPad but for the long boring elliptical workouts I can take my iPad, load up a good movie and set it in front of me. Being well distracted from the monotony of cardio training makes it much easier to do a long workout whereas before I would stop in 1/3 the time out of sheer boredom.

If you want to get back in shape or just make those long workouts a little easier the iPad is a no-brainer!

Additional time spent working out because of iPad: 2hrs per week (est: 50 weeks) 100hrs

iPad Cost Per Hour: $6.00

Additional Calories burned (while exercising): 1200 per week/60000 per year (i.e. 17.14lbs)

Better Health: Priceless!

A few things to note, I didn’t buy the 3G model but I did get 32GB of memory. Wifi is so common that I really haven’t found it to be an issue. There are few places were I can’t get connected if I want to but the extra memory is nice to keep a few more movies and lot’s of music on the device.

There are some new tablets coming out soon that look like good competitors. Brodie Beta did a great tablet review on GeekBeat.TV of a couple of them. The Samsung looks particularly interesting, though I’m often hesitant to get a first generation device (even though I did with iPad).

My final analysis over the course of a year would be that the impact of the iPad on how I spend my time adds up to 640 hrs for a $600 device or less than $1 per hour. Keep in mind that estimate doesn’t include the intrinsic value of entertainment and fun. Of course I won’t be using my iPad everyone of those hours but the net effect is the same.

If any one or all of the factors above apply to you, you’ll find the iPad a very worthwhile expense. What other practical applications can you think of that I missed? Leave us a comment below…

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