In my brief encounter with the iPad, I hope to tell you my impressions on the iPad. After reading this, I hope you'll have a better idea of what the iPad brings to the table and if you should make the decision to purchase one. Comments for this article are most welcome!
I. First-hand Impressions.
The display is something to behold. With a resolution of 1024X768, the interface, pictures, videos, everything looks sharp and colorful. Even in direct sunlight and a good amount of shadows and reflections, the iPad's display did quite OK especially when viewing an image or video with bright colors.
The audio quality on the iPad though was kinda, how should I say it... no oomph! It's loud enough to hear in a quiet environment, but, even in maximum speaker volume, the sound begins to lose steam in a semi-noisy environment. The sound was awesome on my Nokia Bluetooth headset though! Of course, the iPad also has a 3.5" audio connector for use with wired headphones. If you begin to experience ear strain, use a speaker dock or amplified speakers for maximum sound output.
The iPad is light at 1.5lbs to 1.6lbs (3G) or more than half of a kilogram. It get's heavier after about 15 minutes of firmly holding it... or was that my hand just tiring out? ^^,
With the iPad, nothing feels cheap. Of course, it doesn't come cheap either.
II. What I Disliked about the iPad
What's not to like about the Apple iPad? For first impressions, it's almost perfect. But up close and personal? No, not really.
For starters, Apple boasts 250,000 apps on its app store. I found out though that only .04 percent of that is actually compatible with the 7-inch screen. Don't get me wrong, all of those free and paid 250,000 apps work on the iPad--it's just that they were either made for the iPhone or iPod so the screen size for most of the apps are the same as the iPhone and iPod. The iPad does provide a zoom feature but by the time the app fills the screen, the app gets so pixelized, you'll feel like you traveled in time to the days of playing Super Mario on the NES. I didn't enjoy playing Angry Birds on the iPad.
Another thing which I found lacking--and I think most people would agree with me on this--is the lack of a front facing camera. For all the vanity that goes with the iPad, a camera should have been included to flaunt it even more! Rumor is though, that Apple is going to include a camera in it's next iteration of the iPad.
I also still can't connect to my company email too. It's weird that I can configure Outlook Web Access on an iPhone yet fail on the iPad. If you have a solution on how to configure Outlook Web Access on the iPad, I would appreciate it very much.
III. What I Liked about the iPad.
I was totally impressed with the long battery life of the iPad. Even with WiFi continuously on, audio blaring on the built-in speakers, chatting, browsing, and gaming, the battery lasted for days . The Mobily micro-SIM was not yet activated prior to this writing so I didn't have the chance to test out the 3G but I guess with the Wifi continuously on, it was enough to gauge battery life.
As much as I disliked that only .04% of apps at the Apple store were for the iPhone or iPod and of which half were probably junk, there were some jewels among the rubbish--and I was just skimming the surface of apps. Apps will make or break the iPad. Here are my top five.
1. VLC Player
It's the saving grace of watching videos on the iPad. I'm pretty sure you know what I mean. You've got all of these movies and TV shows saved on your hard drive but find out you have to convert them to the .mov format first before you can watch them on your iPad. Not anymore with the VLC Player. Just copy the file into your iPad and watch away.
2. RSS Readers and Newspaper Feeds
For bloggers who need to stay updated on current events, RSS Readers and Newspaper feeds are a must. That is why a lot of app developers have taken advantage of the capabilities of the iPad and have created a lot of them. They all work the same, while others have some special features.
3. Team Viewer
With more than a 100 million users, TeamViewer connects to any PC or server around the world within a few seconds. I can remote control my PC at home or provide technical support using the Team Viewer app.
4. iBooks
All my life, I've loved reading books. There's a different sensation when your brain translates words and stories into images and scenes in your mind. The iPad fits the bill, and like I said earlier, the iPad is easy on the eyes so reading is a blast on the iPad. The Kindle (If you can't beat 'em, join 'em) app works similarly to iBooks, but has a direct access to Amazon, wherein thousands of books can be bought and downloaded for reading on the iPad.
5. Dropbox
Do you constantly forget your USB at home. I sure do and it gets frustrating. Fortunately there's Dropbox, a service that uses the cloud to enable its users to store and share files and folders across the Internet using file synchronization. And it works like a normal folder. Just copy the file into the Dropbox folder and that file becomes accessible to you or to others you share it with anywhere with an Internet connection.
Of course, the apps are what defines the iPad so it is up to you which apps you want installed. If you want more reviews on iPad apps, TechRadar provided their top 130 HERE.
The hardware, as is with most Apple devices, is manufactured to perfection. Albeit with the iPad, I think Steve Jobs and the Apple team could have done more with the operating system like support Adobe Flash.
So, do I like the iPad? Yes. Do I want an iPad? Yes. Will I buy an iPad? No. Do I have the money to buy an iPad? Yes. And still I won't buy it. Why? iPad 2.
