It may have a place in my life in a year or two
Exactly right. For some it will come quicker or slower or not at all.
Personally I spend a lot of time in the evening on the sofa browsing (RSS, IMDB), social networking (here, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, E-Mail). At the moment I use my laptop which is fairly awkward, gets hot, so I have one of those Belkin rests which works well, but is a bit more clunky. Or I might be reading a book on my eReader (Sony PRS505) - crap at pdfs though. I could use my iPhone/HTC HD2, but the small interface starts getting a bit cramped after a while.
When I'm around the house, I might want to look something up. It usually involves me either looking up on the smartphone, then realising after 5 minutes I better move to my desktop or laptop if I carry on reading. Smartphone is great if I want to find something specific.
On the road with work I take the eReader to read fiction. I take my laptop for work (60% e-mail, 20% VOIP, 20% OneNote, 5% RDP, 5% Visio/Office...approx
). E-mail is sorted, VOIP is not (OCS 2007), OneNote kind of, RDP is, Visio/Office mostly no. So I still need my laptop on the road, but I take the eReader anyway, so it's not much to replace like for like and then spend a more comfortable night in a hotel with an iPad - maybe I say.
On the road personally, and I don't need my work tools. iPad/Tablet would fit in very well, much better than laptop. Don't do much photo editing on the road, as I prefer my desktop with 24" calibrated screen, same for video.
So I'd say I'm about 75% sure it fits well into my life. 100% if I just make sure I plan accordingly.