iPad Experience: Safari web browser gives me full access to the Internet

My article on why the iPad is not yet a computer replacement generated quite a few comments and a couple people told me they really did not find limits on the browser (except for Flash of course) so I spent the past week testing out a ton of sites on my iPad. Being that the iPad is powered by the iPhone OS (version 3.2) I thought the Safari browser would work the same and I am happy to report I was wrong. I took screenshots of several pages browsed on both my iPhone 3GS and iPad and included them starting on this page of my iPad Experience series image gallery.

Of the seven pages shown in the image gallery, three of them went to the mobile site on the iPhone 3GS while none of them went to the mobile site on the iPad. Even better, the custom ZDNet blogging creation sites actually work on the Apple iPad and this is only the second mobile device (the Nokia N900 is the other) that has a browser that supports this capability. This is a MAJOR issue for me and with this support on the iPad I can actually take the iPad on the go and create blog posts for ZDNet without any other computer. I plan to try this out soon with my Think Outside Bluetooth keyboard letting me enter text quickly.

I also went to the secure website my wife uses for her Party Lite business and we were both extremely surprised to see that it actually allowed her to login and completely manage her business. We were surprised because we saw this site only working on Internet Explorer in the past, even on PCs, and doubted it would ever work on the iPad. My wife primarily uses her PC for email, Word documents, managing her business site, and managing photos that she sends to Costco to print out. Given that the iPad works with her site, she plans to spend a lot of time using the iPad to see if it can replace her computer. She is very tired of having her newer Windows 7 PC constantly slow down, require virus updates, and act up on a regular basis. If an iPad with a keyboard works for her I think she will be happier and I spend less time on tech support.

The only limitation I have honestly found on the iPad with the Safari web browser is lack of Flash support. I rarely have a need for this so am not that concerned about it. The only Flash sites I can think of visiting in the last few months are for games and ads.

Does the Safari browser on the iPad meet your browsing needs?