Keynote revisited

Better late than never I'm back to Keynote. I think I mentioned before that it was much better than Powerpoint and my views haven't changed - in fact I prefer Keynote even more since a recent update.
Prior to the update, when using Keynote in presenter mode (e.g. hooked up to a projector via the VGA adaptor), the iPad screen showed only the slide number and total number of slides in the presentation, and did not show the slide itself. You had to look at the screen to see your slide(s). It didn't really bother me, but it was awkward at times.
Since the update you can now view the slide on the iPad while projecting. Better still, you can view the current slide and the next slide on the iPad while projecting only the current slide. Even better there's a timer on the iPad screen that can show you the time of day, or you can use it as a stopwatch to indicate elapsed time. And if that were not enough if you hold your finger on the iPad screen you get a laser pointer effect on the projected image!!!
Keynote is very much based around the preformatted templates which are very good. If you are bringing in presentations from another source you should be aware that if you then try to add a new slide to that presentation the new slide will be blank and devoid of formatting. To add a new slide with the same appearance as the rest of the presentation, copy an existing slide, delete text and graphics and work from there.
I think I mentioned that I had no difficulty in importing my PowerPoint files because I do not use complicated templates, formats, transitions, or animations. I have read that Keynote for the iPad does a poor job with highly structured presentations even where these have been made in Keynote for Mac and then imported on iPad.If you use highly structured presentations of this type you should probably do some additional research before you commit to going the iPad route otherwise you may end up having to reconstruct your presentations form scratch on the iPad.
All in all, Keynote on the iPad works very well and with it, your iPad is certainly a replacement for your laptop at lectures.