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A large, high-resolution LED-backlit IPS display. An incredibly responsive Multi-Touch screen. And an amazingly powerful Apple-designed chip. All in a design thats thin and light enough to take anywhere. iPad isnt just the best device of its kind. Its a whole new kind of device.
Technical Details
- Apple iPad Tablet
- Its capacity 64GB
- It includes Wifi
See more technical details
“Incredible!” 2010-04-26
By WeatherEssentials
I bought an Asus Netbook that I tried for 2 days. In my opinion, netbooks are worthless gimmicks. The iPad is hands down the best portable computing device ever. It is fast, easy to use, good looking, and the battery seems to last forever.
“Good gadget but limited use and practicality in real life – more a giant iPod/MP3 than a computer” 2010-04-25
By SA (California, USA)
Many reviews have said it (reviews by Apple fanboys and worshippers should be taken with a pinch of salt).
- Good ‘instant-on’ device for short quick activities like email; but don’t expect to type anything longer than a tweet or text message; painfully slow and impractical. As a typer, I tend to rest my fingers on the keyboard – but that is BAD for a touchscreen. For longer emails or typing, I almost always find myself switching to my laptop.
- Very good looks and sleek; good battery life (I go up to 8-10 hours on a single charge)
- The browser doesn’t works with more than half of the websites that I normally browse.
- I get neck pain/strain after a while trying to type and read on the same ‘plane’ (un-natural posture)
- It is NOT a laptop replacement (let alone a killer); it needs a laptop as the ‘mothership’ for initial setup, software updates, etc. Actually, it uses the same OS as the iPhone/iPod and is identical to an iPod with a bigger screen.
- I always find myself using my iPhone than iPad; iPad is too big to carry in a pocket and too small to be practical and useful like a laptop.
- Can’t print anything from it;
- I could have thrown away my paper notepad if iPad had handwriting recognition (or sketch) to take quick notes.
- The glossy screen is practially useless (unless used in a dark room at night); outdoors it is horrendous to read anything easily. Kindle/Nook are the BEST choices for read anything meaningfully ‘longer’ in content (books, papers, etc).
Net: Still trying to figure out how, where and when I can really use the iPad. I certainly don’t want to carry too many gadgets: e-book reader, phone, laptop and a giant-screen MP3 player:-)
“Wait 3G Version, Not Worth The Money, WiFi didn’t work” 2010-04-25
By Michelle Alexandria (Arlington, VA USA)
The iPad is full of the promise for the future and when you buy it, that’s what you are banking on – that things will be awesome in the future. I purchased the 64-Gig Wi-Fi version on day one and immediately had problems with it. The hotel that I was in only used a hard wired connection, so I had to go down to the lobby to use the WiFi and set up all my apps which wasn’t cool. It was 9pm when I got to my room all I wanted to do was lie in bed and play with my new toy. Due to the lack of multi-tasking it took almost two hours to set up my apps like the Kindle, Marvel, etc. Because I could only download one book at a time and I had to sit there and watch the download. Syncing my library was nightmare because it kept finding “corrupted” files during the sync process and crashing – these are files I purchased in iTunes and had to DELETE before the sync would work and to make matters worse I can’t re-download those files, so if I want another Digital copy of Terminator I would have to buy it. It’s why I loathe DRM.
At the Airport I tried to watch a couple of movies and the screen completely washed out in “bright” light. I couldn’t see any movies that were “dark” like Harry Potter, Xfiles, etc. After one day of minimal use this thing had Smudges all over the place, it looked ugly when turned off. Luckily the smudges don’t really show when it’s turned on.
The real trouble started when I got home. The thing refused to stay connected to by Verizon Fios network. Every time it woke from sleep not did I have to reconnect but I had to re-enter my Network ID, reading web sites became an exercise in frustration because it disconnected literally every 2 or 3 minutes. And a lot of Apps simply “crashed” the second the connection was lost. So it failed miserably at it’s most basic function.
I found it to be too big, heavy and uncomfortable to actually read in Bed, I actually had to lay it down and read it. If I had to do that, I’d might as well use a laptop. I’m assuming I would have gotten used to holding if I had more reasonable return window.
When Apps work, they were beautiful to look at and use – Plants Vs. Zombies, Marvel, Comixology, ABC, Yahoo (surprisingly amazing free app), Kindle, Zinio, etc. The Apps is why you get this. The problem is a lot of these apps are way too much where they are .99 or 2.99 on the iPop, they become $10 and up on the iPad. The price inflation is ridiculous, especially considering most of these apps won’t work on your iPhone. I’d be willing to pay $7 or $8 if they worked on both.
For a device that’s $900 (it’s only worth purchasing the 3G 64 Gig Model – you will fill up the 16 and 32 gigs quickly when the apps are averaging almost a gig), it’s damn difficult to actually get my files onto the device. I have a bunch of Comic book .jpgs, word docs, etc. that I would like use, but have yet to figure out how to actually get them on the device. I broke down and bought the Pages App because that was supposed to make it easy, but it did nothing to help me get my files over. So that was a waste of money. Apple just screwed over iPad users by delaying the release of the SDK 4.0 that brings multi-tasking until this fall.
So yes, I returned the WiFi version, I’m tempted to get the 3G version but $900 is just too much for a device that’s only based on potential, and not what it actually is today.
“IPad: Not for real users, more like a toy for gadgets fans” 2010-04-25
By Eduardo Godyla (Caracas, Venezuela)
Hi,
I am technical director at a software company. It has been a long time ago since I did my last programming, and nowadays I am doing mostly Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, Powerpoint presentations and Pdf document reading. Why all MS Office an Pdf ? Because 100% of our customers and suppliers use it.
I like the iPad because I am truly a gadget fan, and I wanted to study its application to real business.
My conclusion is that the software which is available for the iPad is still not mature, even tough the concept derives from the ipod/iphone, which have been around for a while now.
From a hardware point of view, the device is quasi-perfect. Performance is great, size is OK (albeit I would prefer 16:9) and technological concepts behind the interface are very good. But again, almost everything is inherited from the ipod touch and the iphone. So from the hardware point of view, it is nothing revolutionary. An USB port would be a real plus.
From the software point of view, there is much that needs to be worked out:
The Numbers appliction, doesn’t save files in Excel format, doesn’t let fou open/save spredsheets from “internet disks” (WebDav Servers), with the exception of [...], which is really used for sharing documents and doesn’t allow editing. So for working with Excel spreadsheets and sharing information for editing on the move with your co-workers, the Numbers application is useless.
The Keynote app has exactly the same problem. No saving in Powerpoint format and no way of sharing the files for editing with your co-workers.
The Pages app better, since it can save in Word format, but still no access to “internet disks”.
There are other offerings for MS Office compatible Suites, but I have evaluated 2 of them and both have big problems saving the spreadsheets, loosing the format and formulas when doing so. Result: Useless with the spreadsheets I use daily.
The Mail Application is good enough, even tough you cannot send multi file attachments, so you will have to send the attachments one by one.
The Browser will not render flash content. Until HTML5 becomes a widespread standard, this is also a minus, since flash is sometimes required for my business research.
And as the last issue, there is not real printing support. Sure, there are some apps out there, but most of them uses “tricks” to print entire documents (like using a master pc for example: not really mobile).
The iBooks application works very well if you are capable of converting pdf docs to the iPad format. Now I can read 500 pages technical specs on my couch instead od sitting endless hours sitting in front of my laptop (alltough I could use my laptop on the couch, believe me it is not really confortable).
So my perception is that it will take some time until the available software matures enough, so that the device is ready for use in real business.
As a home use gadget, it is a very interesting and promising device. But be aware: It is an ipod with a larger screen, which has it’s advantages, since it can be used for tasks for which the ipod was not well suited to.
As the time goes by, I will do more tests and post my findings
“Actually prefer an iPod Touch” 2010-04-25
By Matthew E. Slaven (Denton, TX United States)
It took me 30 minutes to get tired of the iPad. Having owned an iPod Touch for 2 years (until it was stolen last fall), the iPad felt routine and commonplace. The bigger screen is the only major difference, and I found it to be a negative one for two major uses:
1. The book app text was very big and spacious. Its been shown in studies that we prefer to read narrow, 5-6 word columns so that we have minimal use of eye muscles (strain). The iPod Touch is closer to this; The screen is only a few inches across, so there is automatically minimal eye movement, but the font is standard size when you double-tap to zoom in the text’s frame. The iPad however, I could tell quickly would be much more tedious on the eyes than even a regular book. When the iPad is in the 2 pages orientation, only 4 paragraphs fit the whole screen. Your eyes and head will be moving around more for less information.
2. Safari web browsing had an additional issue on top of this. The iPad has about an inch-wide border between the edge where your hand is and the screen where you can touch to scroll down. So when scrolling, your thumb has to reach across, adding a little strain that will get tiring, and is immediately annoying. Also the page doesn’t move all that much because the screen is so big, so you have to be more dramatic with your gestures, moving your hand across the whole screen if you want to scroll down a website. With the iPod Touch, the screen is a few millimeters from the edge, so scrolling is accessible without having to use much effort. Also, with the smaller screen, you get a lot more ‘return’ out of your movement.
Lastly, the iPad’s size makes it much heavier and non-pocketable. Part of the iPod Touch’s charm is that it is always in your pocket available to your fingertips and curious brain. Can’t say that about this awkwardly-sized device, however.
After I submit this, I’m going purchase the 3rd gen, 8GB Touch for 180 bucks and get a better experience that I would with the iPad.
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