Key benefit for me is that it is near instant connection to the net when at home, so ideal for quickly looking up something whereas if I was to use my laptop it would take several minutes for it to boot up.
I use it a lot for streaming movies, using apps like: Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, BBC iPlayer, 4oD, ITVPlayer, Demand 5 and WD MyCloud and VLC - the latter two connect to my NAS drive and stream video and audio from that either to the iPad or via the iPad to the TV (via AppleTV).
It is also handy to get the latest news (App: BBC News) and weather (Apps: BBC Weather, WunderMap, yr.no, #uksnow).
I have a variety of apps for the children, games (AngryBirds, AnimalMemory, Rock Runners) , music (such as Piano Free) and educational like (Agnitus, Grolly, Barnyard, Preschool Fun, Light-Bot Hour of Code) and others like Bugs&Buttons, Toca House, Forest Flyer, My PlayHome, 101 Puzzles, CBeebies Playtime, Dinorama.
Then there are things like CalenMob (which is a Google Calendar app), Twitter, Facebook, Kindle Reader.
Really you can use it for all sorts of things, many apps are free or low cost so you can try things out and if it is no use just delete it.