If not the ipad then what instead?

[famousringo]

Rainbird said:

superchunk said:

I've seen a couple of you blast Android as not being a true replacement for Windows.... well how?

It's good for some things, like web based stuff and some games as you mentioned. But running Windows 8 means you have a huge backlog of available applications, some of which you may or may not be using in your daily life. I know an Android tablet would in no way be able to free me from my laptop for that reason alone, regardless of keyboard and mouse combatibility. 

And without having tried it, I would guess Windows is more optimized for mouse and keyboard in general, not to mention for tasks like file management.

But here's the problem with Windows 8 tablets: That huge backlog of applications won't run on them. 

Unless you get one of the Atom tablets, I guess, then you get a chunky, noisy tablet with bad battery life and you can run old apps if you're willing to put up with a terrible interface.

Microsoft has a pretty good history of getting developers on board (excepting Phone 7), so that situation might not persist, but I'm not going to recommend early adoption of Win 8 tabs to anybody. Windows on tablets is going to effectively be a brand new platform, and it will need to prove itself.

To the OP, if playing a few games and watching internet video are your use cases, and $400 is too much of a barrier to you, might as well get a Kindle Fire. It's the cheapest tablet, and the second best supported by developers.