gdgt

The big issue is video. Do you want to use it to watch video on the go?

If not, you should be fine. If you do want to watch videos I can't image you surviving without the 32.

I own a 16gb 'base' model and find it does everything I need. I do not use it as an ipod much so only have a few hundred megs of music. I have a few mp4 videos but only store ~3 episodes of Big Bang Theory or whatever at a time. I have a lot of apps of all types, several games, and keep a small pdf book and mag library. Overall, I have never felt very limited or feel I have to 'clean house' to often to make room. If you have DropBox or Sugarsync accounts you can access many files there or email them to yourself. Netflix streaming works well and does not require storage except for the app itself. The main reason to have a lot of storage is for offline use - reading books, watching videos, or listening to music when wifi is not available. Otherwise, content is streamable.

I don't put my iTunes library on my 16 GB iPad, so I have plenty of space. I just have apps.

I've dropped all music/podcasts from my iPad, and only have apps, plus a about 1GB of video, and I'm starting to hit the limit. Although I should really clean up the apps I have on there.

I feel that 16 is 'enough' but if apps keep growing at their current rate 32 would give you overhead.

Thanks for the responses. My apologies for posting an incredibly subjective question. I'm a bit nervous that the new breed of apps like Garageband and iMovie are going to eat space for breakfast.

It does seem from my research that the extra space holds a bit higher resale value later.

I wish I got more than the 16 Gb model. Game apps can easily be 1 to 2 Gb, plus magazine apps like Wired can download ~500 Mb an issue. I also have a comic book app that I load ecomic files into. I easily fill up my iPad and need to delete things.

Well, some apps take quite a lot of space and my guess is that with the iPad 2 will soon come games or other apps with better graphics which should increase the average size of an app.

I personally would not buy a 16GB. In fact, I will get the 64GB most probably: I currently have the 32GB iPad and it is almost filled even if I have no video (but 8GB of music).

I purchased the 32+3G on launch day last year and I rarely go above 16 GB. I use rdio for all my music, so a 16 GB iPad 2 is enough for me.

I have the same conundrum (won't be carrying my music/videos on it), plus I'm new to iOS and mindful of how newer apps (between GarageBand presumably being filled with lots of sound samples and games taking advantage of the new GPU ) may be a lot bigger. Is 32GB the way to go?