Everything seems to work fine with over the air downloads from the app store with wifi and 3G but it takes an age to sync with itunes. The Apple support person suggested restoring the software using itunes but that seems a bit drastic doesn't it for a new device that is otherwise working fine? I am using a PC which is not the quickest in the world but usually works fine.

I've noticed it takes an age to 'back up' but the actual sync doesn't take that long. However iOS 4 devices seem to sync much faster on the latest version of iTunes.

What sort of times are you talking? And how many approximate media items/apps is it synching with?

I synced mine yesterday and put on 207 music files, 4 movies (average size 1.5GB), 4 episodes of a non-HD TV show and 5 Apps.

That took about 8 minutes.

A normal sync that is only changing a single movie, TV show episode or a few new songs or Apps should only take 2-3 minutes.

Slow syncing has nothing to do with the iPad, its your host computers ability to transfer the data, the older the computer the slower it will be.