I posted a couple of weeks ago about the long awaited launch of Apple's new tablet and how it could be the missing link to the paperless law office.

Now we have seen it in the flesh (or at least on Apple's website) - how does the reality compare to my expectations?

The boring truth is that the rumours seem to have been pretty close to the mark this time around and Apple unveiled a tablet device with a 10-inch multitouch screen.

There is an ebook (sorry, iBook!) reader and store built into the device and iWork will be available as well, which should allow decent functionality for using Word and Excel documents.

The physical keyboard options are a real winner - for me you need to be able to type properly on a device like this.

There are a couple of real disappointments for me at least:-

• no multitasking so far as I can see (?!) forgivable on a phone, but on a device this size?
• no flash support judging by the sites Steve Jobs browsed in the keynote.

The US price is much lower than I expected (from $499 to $829 depending on the version). At the current exchange rate this would be about £310 in the UK, but I presume we will see the usual special Apple exchange rate of about $1 to £1.

I guess at least the lack of carrier tie-in will make it easy to import a Wifi version from the US.

The features I was really looking for (document reading and annotation) will probably have to come via an App if there is the demand for them.

At the moment I'm not quite sure how tempted I am. You still need an iPhone and a computer and I'm not quite sure what I could do with the iPad when on the move that I can't do with the iPhone.

I think I will be hanging back to see what the feedback is like from the early adoptors - and see what Apps come out for it.