Never mind where you show your samples the iPad is a great piece of technology to showcase them. It still has a definite novelty factor & actually feels much more natural to hand over to like you would a photo instead of hunching over your laptop. The size is plenty big enough.

It just seems so dang small, but my wife and I are strongly looking into it, especially with how much we hate windows (Ugh!).

iPad iPad iPad! - I just switched from lugging around a laptop. The video quality on the iPad is amazing and the size is more than adequate. Clients can hold in their hand, adjust to a comfortable viewing position, adjust volume etc. I bring along a headphone out splitter and two lightweight sets of headphones. If you meet at Starbucks you can take advantage of the free WiFi and jump to your website for more samples. Only drawback so far is that I can't show what the DVD menu looks like.

Oooh, and then there's that. I guess I could make a demo video of how the menu functions.

I'm REALLY close to getting one. Really close!

Dana, I can well understand you wanting to buy a sexy iPad, they look great, but if the objective is to show DVDs and the iPad won't let you demonstrate the DVD menu, doesn't logic suggest that the best route is an un-sexy portable DVD player at about 25% of the price of the iPad? - or maybe with Christmas coming you could swing both?

I've tried iPad, but I can't stand fingerprints on the screen and that is inevitable with the one, plus when I meet my clients we just talk, and they never ask me for additional videos;
I have about 15 constanty updated videos on my website and when my potential clients contact me i reply with the template email that has all info and also links to SDEs, save the date and full wedding videos; most of the time my clients don't have time to watch all online content that i send them prior to our meeting, so 9 out of 10 just want to give me deposit and make sure that I got the date booked for them.

most people know how a DVD menu works so just a still shot of the menu should work fine. I also use to push the fact that my trailers and highlights can be downloaded and shown around on their own iPods/iPads.

With our current 19" laptop I can watch BR DVDs with the clients and point out things.

Portable 10" HD Player: $250
* Ability to show menu system
* Ability to show various menus
* Lower cost
* No fingerprints, though probably shiny and reflective

iPad 9.7" Mac $545
* Replace stupid PC laptop that I hate, offsetting the cost a bit
* Would serve as email hub for on-location reference
* Ability to show HD footage, though w/o menu system
* Cool calendar system
* No more Windows - we'd be all Mac
* WiFi

Question: How can a 256 ram/16gb 'laptop' play and HD movie without skipping? Also when you watch it with battery power, does the screen dim to save battery?

videos play smooth as butter - no skipping. The image is much brighter than my laptop. My rational for purchasing was for the other uses as well. It's a great e-Reader. My wife and I use it 80% of the time for that purpose.

I agree with you Dana, here in Phoenix since it comprises so many cities, Surprise, Glendale, Peoria, Scottsdale, Mesa, Tempe, Gilbert, and many more it is important to occasionally offer meeting half way and Starbucks is perfect for that.

My favorite Starbucks story is booking three weddings one night at one Starbucks, I booked the wedding I was showing and two couples who were engaged wandered over to view as well, within weeks I had booked all three. That never happens at the studio.

That's a great story Bill! Something similar happened at my last meeting, but I haven't booked her yet.

Looks like someone already beat me to it, but I would recommend the iPad. It's sexy and stylish and minimal and just all-around good in many ways. You might consider some external speakers or headphones (speakers would be best as not every bride will want to put on headphones).

Obviously the best thing to do is have them meet you at your studio, but if that's not always working for you, try the iPad. We have one and we love it, although we meet with couples in our studio for local weddings 99.999% of the time. d;-)