Just this. They seem like smartphones that do everything except take and make calls. They seem like laptops except they don’t sit very well on your lap. I mean, are there any real advantages to ipads over anything else?
The various tablets filled a niche for many people. Phones are tougher to read or play games on. Tablets are very light and generally go a long time on a battery charge.
My wife has a phone & laptop and a Samsung tablet. She likes it mostly for games and as an E-reader.
You may not remember, but that was the topic of conversation when the first iPad was introduced back in 2010. The answer has been made clear over the years: the screen is larger than a cellphone, making it easier to view, type on, or click on links; yet the entire unit is much smaller and lighter than the typical laptop.
Expanding on What_Exit posted, the iPad filled a niche which people didn’t really know was there.
One advantage (until fairly recently) I realized when my 90+ year old mother agitated for a computer.
Computer novices (especially the older generations) quite often have a tough time realizing that the computer is there, the screen is there, and the way in which you interact is there (mouse) and there (keyboard). When something goes wrong, their instinct is that the problem is in the monitor.
The iPad allowed my mom to quickly pick up on how to interact with the computer, because she could directly interact with the computer in every aspect of her use of the computer.
When I used to travel a lot my iPod was fantastic because it was a light screen I could carry anywhere and would act as a decent sized screen for watching video or playing games. Also it’s much easier to browse the internet on a tablet then on a laptop which needs to be booted up and managed. The iPad was easy to pick up and connect really quickly to view social media, maps or fora such as these.
I think that summarizes it really well.
One other aspect that people may not adequately appreciate is watching movies on a tablet. I often watch movies and TV shows in bed, and in a dark room the effective screen size of a handheld tablet is amazingly theatrical. Most tablets have reasonable speakers, and even if they don’t, a good pair of headphones can take the theatrical experience to a whole other level.
But mostly, I find my tablet a great way to surf the internet in the morning or late at night when I’m in bed. My phone is ridiculously too small, but perhaps others are better.
I mention the “in bed” part because I rarely use my tablet anywhere else, except sometimes to plug into my sound system to stream Spotify as background music.
I use a tablet (iPad) for checking email, being able to access large documents and drawings in PDF, storing photos and doing a modest amount of image manipulation, and even doing light productivity tasks like editing Word and Excel documents, all while standing or in a vehicle where it would be awkward or impossible to do with a laptop. I could do some of these things on a phone, like checking email, but the size of the tablet makes it more legible and easier to type. I really prefer my phone to be as compact as possible to fit into a jacket or pants pocket, and even a giant sized phone wouldn’t be very useful for looking at engineering drawings or paging through large documents.
Stranger
Use mine for media consumption (mainly internet, webcomics and the like more than videos) in bed and on the couch. Sometimes some light casual mobile gaming. More portable and better battery life than a laptop, larger screen and more comfortable than my phone. It’s a pretty niche application (though I can use it for more in a pinch, like in lieu of a laptop in a hotel room) but then I buy 10" screen Android tablets for around $200 rather than iPads.
Just wanted to add my $0.02. The OP specifically mentioned the iPad vs phones or laptops, and may well have meant tablets in general, as they are the most common example seen. Answering that specific question though, gives me a slightly different answer. It doesn’t have a good advantage.
The reason I say that, is that I have several tablets, and much like others here, I use them for the larger screen (esp. helpful for movies and surfing the web) and as an e-reader when I’m not using my dedicated one. I use it most frequently in bed, but when travelling (back when people did that) it became my main machine. I have a laptop, but the effort of getting it out (especially on a plane!!!) getting it plugged in if possible, and moving it about was a pain unless I had several hours to kill.
For most of us, the tablet is a good compromise, as long as it isn’t too expensive. And that’s where I dislike iPads, specifically. At the price point of most of them, I find it hard to justify the cost of having a $4-500 cell phone, a $6-700 laptop and a $4-500 iPad (they go for as low as $350 and over a grand, but I’m going middle/low end here). I need to have a phone since I tossed my land line, and the laptop can do a lot more than the tablet. The tablet is the one that gets kicked to the curb if I have to budget.
And no, I’m not just picking on the iPad, the high end Samsung and Windows Surface tablets get the same complaint. Where tablets shine for me is the lower level Samsung series, and especially the Kindle Fire. Yes, the Kindle is going to be irritatingly stuck with selling you Amazon crap and without extra work, won’t let you into the full Google ecosystem, but bang for buck it’s the best around, especially if you’re just going to surf the web, watch movies, and read books.
Personally, if I’m going to have a device that’s too big to fit into my pocket, I want it to have a full-sized keyboard and screen. An in-between device has no appeal to me.
But apparently there are plenty for whom it does appeal. Shrug.
I will say that a tablet currently serves my mom well as her primary computer, but that’s more a function of the OS (the walled garden model means there’s less that can go wrong) than of the shape and size.
I’m sitting at a metal probably 1950s desk with my 7 year old tower computer and 2 large monitors. My laptop doesn’t even gets used much. It is mostly for travel which I haven’t done much of lately. No tablet for me.
The obvious advantage over phones is that the screen is bigger. There are a lot of things you can do on a bigger screen much better than a smaller one.
There are definitely applications that are better with multi-touch input than with a keyboard and mouse/trackpad. Obviously, things that involve typing are easier with a computer, but things that don’t are often better with touch controls.
Drawing and writing are much better on an iPad. Viewing something (like a map) that’s much larger and more detailed than a single screen can hold is better on an iPad. Pinch to zoom is more intuitive than a mouse scroll-wheel, and you can pan in any direction and even pan/zoom simultaneously.
In many cases, iPads get better battery life than laptops, so if what you want to do is watch movies for 10 hours without recharging, an iPad is a good choice.
iPads arguably have better specs/quality at the same price point (obviously, it depends on what you care about). My iPad is a delight to use. It doesn’t stutter, it has a beautiful screen, it’s made out of machined aluminum, it wakes in less than a second. I’ve used laptops that cost less than $350 new. I’ve never liked them.
I’d frame the OP’s question exactly the opposite way.
ETA: I made the mistake of buying a $2,000 MacBook before my first IPad. That MacBook hasn’t been opened in 3 years.
I treat my iPad (with the fold-out keyboard/screen rest) like a super-lightweight laptop. Like others, the extra screen size and keyboard make tasks like posting on SDMB much easier than using a phone.
Nicer to share videos and websites with friends on a bigger screen than a phone. In a Toastmasters meeting, using a Timer app is simple and effective, as it can be seen by the speaker from a reasonable distance.
To me, it’s ’enough’ of a laptop for most of what I need, but at a fraction of the weight.
You get a larger screen than a phone, giving you more room to do more productive things, or just for being able to read or watch more comfortably. But you don’t increase the weight by much, and you don’t get a keyboard that often gets in the way or more the more mouse related tasks.
I actually think it’s the laptop that makes less sense than the tablet, unless it is your only computer. If you have a desktop to handle anything very computationally expensive, you tend to have a laptop that is not super powerful, more like a tablet. And you can turn a tablet into a laptop by adding a keyboard, but you can’t turn a laptop into a tablet.
(There are some hybrid laptop/tablets where you can tuck the keyboard behind the screen, but it still adds a ton of bulk, while you can just remove the keyboard of a tablet.)
I’m actually back to considering if I should get a tablet again, specifically because I can conveniently add a keyboard. I tried using a tablet keyboard for my phone, but then I have no easy way to hold the phone while I’m typing. And external phone keyboards are too small for touchtyping.
I remember when I used to try and use a laptop while reclining or in bed. It was always really annoying having that keyboard in there that I wasn’t using at the time.
I’ve seen many kids use tablets and it seems to be a good solution for them.
I’m an IT guy, but from my perspective it’s the right tool for the job.
On the go? It’s an iPhone 12 Pro. Can I VPN into the office and connect to a server? Yes, but far from ideal.
At my desk? Both home and office I have a desktop with a 34” ultra wide screen monitor. Works great for multi-tasking.
In bed/on the couch/eating lunch? An iPad Air is ideal for browsing, reading the Dope, or watching Netflix.
In a meeting room or at a client (not now of course)? A Surface Pro 6.
Yes, that’s about $12,000 in hardware but it makes my job easier.
Yeah, I have a desktop at home, a Surface Pro for travel (tablet when I want, full Windows laptop when I need- the mullet of laptops: Business in the front, party in the back" 
) a small kindle for kicks and a Samsung Note for maximum capability on the go.
I never put down other choices for mobility and computing. I’ll never buy an Apple tablet, laptop, or computer, but different strokes for different folks.
Substitute “own” for “buy”
I use a desktop Mac for my work (accounting and writing mostly), online banking, and online gaming. I use my iPad for everything else. I have a laptop somewhere, but I never use it.
For the record, I didn’t know how much I would love an iPad until I got one. I use it multiple times every single day. 