Deagol

Day 1 estimate: 120,000 iPads sold

A snapshot of who's buying what based on a sample of first-day pre-orders

The team at Investor Village's AAPL Sanity board have completed their initial analysis of pre-orders for the iPad tablet computer.

Apple (AAPL) began taking orders on Friday for delivery starting April 3.

Based on a sampling of 99 orders (for 110 iPads) over 19.5 hours, and not counting units that were reserved but not ordered, the Sanity team estimates:

Nearly 120,000 MORE

Apple's gap is closing quickly

The opportunity to cash in on the iPhone's subscription accounting has mostly passed

Apple (AAPL) is scheduled to report its fiscal 2009 earnings next Monday, Oct. 19, and in the days ahead investors can expect to hear a lot about the new accounting rules that will allow Apple for the first time to book iPhone revenue when the sales occur, rather than spreading it out over eight quarters.

The effect of the MORE