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by Dan Miller, Macworld.com

Steve Jobs shows off Apple’s iPad on Wednesday.

Slated to arrive at the end of March, the iPad will start at $499 for a Wi-Fi-equipped 16GB model. Apple will also sell 32GB and 64GB versions of the iPad for $599 and $699, respectively.

A slate that looks much like a larger iPhone, the iPad features a home button, a MacBook-like aluminum bezel and a glass screen. It’s a half-inch thick, weighs 1.5 pounds, and has a 9.7-inch LCD screen (with 1024 by 768 resolution). It will use a custom-made 1GHz CPU and flash storage and, Jobs claimed, will get up to 10 straight hours of battery life or a month of life on standby.

The iPad runs on a 1GHz Apple A4 chip. That’s an Apple-built processor resulting from the company’s April 2008 purchase of PA Semi, which specialized in low-power processors.

For connectivity, in addition to the optional 3G, it has 802.11n, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 2.1; it syncs to a Mac via USB. To feed those 3G connections, Jobs also announced two new cellular data plans from AT&T: $14.99 a month for 250MB of data, $29.99 a month for unlimited data; both are prepaid, meaning neither requires a contract like the two-year commitment that iPhone users must make.

Apple touts the iPad as a third category of device, positioned between a smartphone and a laptop. During Wednesday’s presentation, Jobs drew a pointed contrast between the iPad and netbooks—lower-cost PCs that have sold well in the mobile market. But Jobs characterized netbooks as slow, burdened with low-quality displays and running PC programs. “They’re not better than a laptop at anything,” Jobs said. “They’re just cheaper.”