Is an iPad really worth it?

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tripp

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#412335 3-Dec-2010 06:46

I like mine, remote desktop to my home pc, can even get freeview on it now via splashtop remote

reven

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#412351 3-Dec-2010 08:30

good: portability, easy to use, its pretty and has a good display, iOS 4.2 gives us folders and multitasking, great for reading comics, keyboard is large enough to type notes quickly (i used my ipad at teched this year and took a lot of notes with it, couldnt have done that on my iphone), games are pretty good (if designed for the devices, ported games not so much), 3g model has gps which is handy in a car (with passenger navigating, or just to stop and find out where to go), there is a turn by turn app for it (just need a car cradle... )

battery life is amazing, i charge mine about once a week.

bad: browsing multiple sites isnt fluid enough, you have to hold down over a link to open in a new tab and switching between takes too long (actual tabs would be better), a lot more productive on my laptop, for light browsing its fine, but if i want to sit down and browse things like trademe where i open a lot of tabs, ill use my laptop.

its not a killer device, and it wont fully replace my laptop, but im glad i bought it (3g 32gb) for me its everything i expected it to be. the next version may be nice with a camera, but i dont suspect i would use this often (i never use it on my MBP), so doubt i will upgrade next year (maybe the year after that).

JimmyC

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#412364 3-Dec-2010 09:09

reven:
bad: browsing multiple sites isnt fluid enough, you have to hold down over a link to open in a new tab and switching between takes too long (actual tabs would be better), a lot more productive on my laptop, for light browsing its fine, but if i want to sit down and browse things like trademe where i open a lot of tabs, ill use my laptop.

Have you tried the iLunascape browser? Has tabs... amongst other things.

khull

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#412844 4-Dec-2010 18:08

Great device for what I use it for - checking mail in the morning, reading a magazine in a cafe in the day and ebooks at night.

Nothing stopping other manufacturers to create a great device. But unfortunately nothing comes close to what an iPad offers at the moment

JayADee

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#412862 4-Dec-2010 19:45

JimmyC:
reven:
bad: browsing multiple sites isnt fluid enough, you have to hold down over a link to open in a new tab and switching between takes too long (actual tabs would be better), a lot more productive on my laptop, for light browsing its fine, but if i want to sit down and browse things like trademe where i open a lot of tabs, ill use my laptop.

Have you tried the iLunascape browser? Has tabs... amongst other things.?

Thanks for the browser tip. Using it now. Very nice. I think I read it will import bookmarks next version. As it is I am just adding my favourites. Pain trying to remember all my passwords!

JimmyC

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#413437 6-Dec-2010 13:34

JayADee: Pain trying to remember all my passwords!

There's an app for that too ;-)

1password

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angusdog

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#419335 20-Dec-2010 10:39

The thing I've found about the iPad is it's a great device for supplementing a desktop and an alternative to the telly. $6 gets you the Eye TV app so we can watch & record freeview channels (assuming you have the Eye hardware), $0 gets you Air Video so all the media on my desktop that also goes to the Apple TV is also available to the iOS devices in our house. Plus my wife (her iPad) can carry photos of the kids. Plus you can read on it. The Kindle store is superb, but I haven't had a chance to read a book on it yet.

The games are great - easier to get a higher score on the iPad than an iPod touch/iPhone. Just downloaded Riven (1GB download - eeeek!).

If you have a laptop, you're probably not going to find it so versatile. A friend of mine swapper her laptop for one and hasn't looked back.

The longer you have it, the more you'll find to do with it.

geekiegeek

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#419352 20-Dec-2010 11:21

I just brought one a week ago. I love it. Magazines like Wired are fantastic with interactive content, video and audio. I made a video of our house for my wifes grandparents using my iPhone and playback on the ipad to show them at xmas is fantastic.

I mainly use it for web browsing, reading news etc via apps, magazines and books. Lighter and smaller then a laptop, instant on, long battery life, whats not to like?

I think that a lot of the people who dis the iPad are trying to pigeon hole it into existing device's - the ipad is not a replacement for a laptop or a smartphone. It is a device for consuming media and it does that job very well in my opinion.

JimmyC

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#419865 21-Dec-2010 09:59

geekiegeek:
I think that a lot of the people who dis the iPad are trying to pigeon hole it *snip* It is a device for consuming media and it does that job very well in my opinion.

Yup, but don't pigeon hole there either necessarily. Amongst other things, I designed my wedding invitation using Pages (if the missus was impressed it had to be good!), and use Keynote for putting work presentations together. Apple (and others) have built some very practical and functional mobile versions of various content creation software.

Welcome to the darkside btw ;-)

Benjip

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#419869 21-Dec-2010 10:12

I had one and I never really bonded with it. I'm an Apple fanatic (iMac, MacBook Pro, several iPods, iPhone 4 etc.) but I just didn't use it as much as I thought I would - and then it got stolen so I replaced it with a new TV (blessing in disguise perhaps?).

My biggest gripes were the slow loading of tabs and Safari in general, and the constant re-loading of tabs as soon as you had more than 4 of them open at once. I guess I've just been spoilt by the speed of the iPhone 4, which I guess is because it has double the RAM (not sure about processor speed). The other thing that irked me is the crap quality of the display - it felt like looking at a PC in 800x600 mode, having gotten so used to the gorgeous Retina Display on the iPhone 4. Every time I woke the device and saw the big time/clock at the top of the screen, I'd cringe a little at the jagged text and overall blurriness of the whole thing.

It could also be lighter. I never found the perfect position to use it in - it's too heavy to just hold in one hand comfortably, so everything involved holding it with both hands and then having to remove one of the hands to scroll etc.

I guess it's a great device if you don't have an iPhone and a laptop readily available. Browsing the net was fun while watching TV but I can do that in much better quality and much faster on my iPhone. It's definitely a consumption device rather than one you'd use to create content, so you can't interact with the web as much as on an actual Mac or 'PC'.

I'll see what 'iPad 2' brings - if it's faster (a given), has FaceTime (also a given) and has a much, much better display (not guaranteed) then I may pick one up again.

geekiegeek

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#419872 21-Dec-2010 10:16

I think with ipad 2 I will probably gift my ipad 1 to the wife and buy one. Mainly because I just like having new toys.

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Tomy255

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#427817 16-Jan-2011 23:47

GET AN IPAD! cus i have one :)

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