This article is written as an impressions piece. We’ve already reported on the details on pricing, size, availability, network, etc. You can find those details here.

I can’t tell you exactly when, and I can’t tell you exactly how, but we got to go hands-on with Apple’s iPad sometime over the weekend. Tech Bucket Blog was not invited to the launch event, which is totally okay with us, but we got to go up-close and personal with it for about as long as we wanted.

We walked away impressed, confused, excited, and not so much all at the same time. However, one though couldn’t escape our minds. That quote from Steve Jobs basically saying he wouldn’t support it a tablet Mac unless it had more uses than surfing on the toilet. Hold onto that thought…it’ll makes sense later.

So, let’s take this one thing at a time.

First the display. It’s gorgeous. That’s really the only word for it. I’ve never seen an IPS display before as it’s always been reserved for high-end displays and graphic designer types. I’ve seen them at various shows and seen a few in action and thought the display was pretty sharp. Getting a look at one up close, it’s just beautiful. The colors are graphics are supremely sharp. No way around it. iPad itself is brightly lit, but not so much so that it hurts your eyes. It’s not as easy to read as an e-Ink display or a freshly purchased paperback, but contrast was somewhere in between Apple’s quality displays and a high quality e-Ink e-book reader display.

I can’t tell you if the display will be as easy on the eyes (in terms of eye-strain). My guess is, nothing will be as easy reading as a display with e-Ink. But that’s partially personal preference.

Next, the hardware. iPad is not heavy per se, but it’s not light either. It’s got surprising heft when you pick it up because the unit is so thin and looks surprisingly smaller than you’d expect. For comparing, it’s basically the size of an 80page composition notebook. A pretty standard notebook you can grab at any store. The screen is smooth (of course) almost feeling like glass, and the backing is a cool

Interface. If you have an iPod Touch or iPhone, iPad will impress you. If you’ve never used one of those devices, then iPad will simply blow you away. It’s as clean a UI as Apple has created. Feedback is instant, whether your sliding your finger or pinch zooming and the pretty display compliments the UI even more. To add to the experience, you’ll find typical Apple touches throughout, like in flipping the “pages” of an iBook.

Of course we looked at some apps as well, just a peek though. We got a quick look at the iBooks (the bookshelf). Being able to purchase and read your books is done really well. This is where iPad truly does for books what iTunes did for music. It’s that cool, but keep in mind we had a whole 5 minutes with this part of the iPad.

Playing back movies and listening to music is easy. Cover flow is in full use and it’s pretty slick as well. Not really a big departure from iPod Touch/iPhone here. Games are equally what you’d expect, although the graphics almost seem improved on iPad but that could’ve been the IPS display just impressing us or the fact that we just played a little bit.

We didn’t look at Maps or some of the other apps, but instead, we focused on iWork. Each app in iWork will be available for $10, which to me is kind of strange. This kind of stuff should be included on-board this type of device. It’s like when you buy a Mac today, how iLife just feels right and should be pre-installed for free. Well, with a tablet like iPad, our impression was it iWork almost felt like it needed to be on here and not a $10 purchase. But maybe that’s just us.

iWork does really well on iPad, typing is easy and surprisingly real-physical keyboard like. We were pretty impressed. It’s flat keys, sure, but the spacing and responsiveness far exceeded anything available today. It’s what you would expect from taking notes or doing some quick number crunching on a pad and paper, only Apple’s giving your pad and paper a lot more oomph and processing power.

We didn’t get a chance to ask too many questions, but we asked about writing apps and hand writing recognition. We weren’t told a no or yes. However, we were told that several handwriting apps are already available for iPhone/iPod Touch and these apps should work on iPad with no changes. However, devs will be able to upgrade their apps easily with the new SDK to work on the iPad.

Some random things on iPad: Browsing, (no flash support and we were afraid to ask) works well and it shouldn’t surprise you at all. Headphone jack and built in speakers, but sound was tiny. You could adjust though, but we didn’t bother. It’s not bad, but not great either (what did you expect? Dolby 5.1?).

But here’s what we were missing on the iPad. First, there’s no camera. This wasn’t really surprising to us as it’s kind of awkward to whip out a composition notebook sized device to take a picture and it’s really not designed to do that.

There’s a serious miss on the ability to multi-task though. You can’t run more than one app, at least we weren’t able to. We had to shut down one and switch to another app. We may have tried a few things on our Droid phone during our test session, but the glaring unhappy stare that we got told us to put it away. So we did. (Seriously though? They don’t care, we got a laugh though).

No copy-paste either, which is really another shocker, but it’s available on iPhone/iPod Touch so don’t be surprised if it makes it over, quickly.

So there you have it. Our hands on with iPad. We walked away thinking it was cool and jonesing for one, but a few minutes thinking about it left us sort of puzzled. Not a tablet like a Tablet PC (full blown OS, desktop apps, etc), not quite an iPhone/iPod Touch either, and definitely not an e-book reader.

We all agreed on one thing though. This thing is going to be freakin’ awesome when you’re sitting on the can.

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