Apple‘s new flagship product, the iPad, was only just released in countries outside the USA last Friday, and I was fortunate to get my hands on one on launch day. Like many Apple products, this one has divided people, with a lot of people decrying it as a device looking for a purpose, a device that falls between two stools (not as portable as a phone, not as functional as a laptop), a device that is stifled within Apple’s walled garden. Despite there already being a plethora of reviews out there on the internet, I thought I’d give my initial impressions of it after the first weekend.
First, some context
It would be illustrative first of all to set out my reasons for wanting to lay down some cash on a product such as this, in order to frame the context in which I’m evaluating it. Some potentially relevant facts:
- I don’t have an iPhone. I work from home, and I consider it extremely impolite to be constantly stabbing away at a phone while in a social gathering (you know who you are), therefore I can’t justify owning one. I have a far cheaper Nokia smartphone which does what I need just fine for the rare occasions when I need to check the internet on the go.
- I like Macs. This is an opinion which I’ve come to only in the last few years – despite studying user interface design as a module of my compsci degree, my interest in practical applications of the subject has only recently been piqued, and I’ve learned that Apple definitely groks these things better than most. I’ve also changed – I used to love taking apart my PCs, customising them to the nth degree, knowing every tweaked and tricked out element of it. Now, after 20 years, I find that kind of a bore and generally just want something that works, gets out of the way and lets me get on with what else I want to do, and I find Macs are good at that.
- I find touch interfaces very interesting. As an RSI sufferer for the last 7 or so years, I’ve become acutely aware of how terrible mice are as an ergonomic interface. Really, they’re awful – the wrist rotation, the fact your arm has to be right out to the side with most setups, these things are ergonomic suicide. At some point, unless you want chronic carpal tunnel syndrome, you’re going to have to switch to a track ball, a track pad, or one of those vastly overpriced vertically oriented mice. Personally, I try to use the keyboard for most things, which isn’t great but it’s better than the mouse, and a track pad on laptops as much as I can, which are much more natural. The prospect of a renaissance of user interfaces designed not to need a mouse, but to be entirely driven by touch, is something very appealing to me. It doesn’t work at all for sustained use when there are large, immovable vertical screens involved, and it doesn’t work that well when the device is too small – to me the pad form factor is the ideal for this approach.
- I watched Star Trek:TNG and lusted after their pads for years (even though they were just fake plastic slabs). Now it’s a reality! Who wouldn’t want that?
Perhaps importantly, going into this I wasn’t one of those people looking to replace another device with the iPad, but I did see it as an opportunity to use an iPad in use cases where I considered the other devices I could already use to be sub-optimal. I’ll cover those use cases later on when I discuss how things turned out in practice. So now, on to my evalution…
Physical characteristics
I’ll try not to cover too much ground that’s already been adequately covered elsewhere. You already know the iPad is fantastically well constructed, beautiful to look at, has a wonderfully bright and sharp screen (which is prone to finger prints) – we’ll take all that as read. In my opinion, it’s not that heavy, but if you had planned to hold it up in front of your face with one hand for a long time, yeah that’s going to get uncomfortable. Personally, I don’t do that – like when I’m reading a book of any size, I rest the iPad on my lap, either flat or just propping it up on edge with one hand, and that’s fine for several hours in my experience. Having said that, the sleek and smooth exterior means you can be afraid of dropping it – however I’m using it in a leather flip-case (I’ll cover that in a future post, it’s a good one), and in this configuration gripping it becomes a total non-issue.
The screen was sharper than I expected, it seems to have approximately the same pixel size as my MacBook Pro, since even though the resolution is lower, the screen is only 9 inches. The default brightness setting was a little dark for me so I tweaked it up to about 75%, which was perfect. It’s a glossy screen which you may have problems with outside, but inside in full daylight (we have many windows in our house) and using regular lighting at night, reflection has not been an issue.
As has been pointed out, there are no cameras. Personally, that’s not something I care about – I don’t use my mobile phone camera either and I have a far superior camera within 10 feet of me in my lounge if I need one. I can imagine a camera for video conferencing might be useful to some people, but I’ve had one in my MacBooks for 3 years and I’ve never used them, so really, this is not important to me.
Connectivity wise, we’re talking minimal – just a dock connector and Wifi. It would have been nice to have a USB slot or two and especially a SD card slot (although you can get an adapter for that), but anyone who’s bought an iPod before knows the Apple way – don’t try to do everything, just try to do the core things better than anyone else. So, did they manage that?
General User Experience
I’d sum it up on one word – ‘butter’. The fact is that the iPad comes with only a small piece of card of instructions (and bizarrely, a 300 page downloadable manual which I don’t think they expect anyone to read), and you don’t even need to read that. Seriously, a monkey could work this thing, and it wouldn’t even need any training. I consider myself a geek still, and some geeks seem to find user friendly experiences offensive, as if it undermines the skills they’ve acquired, but I’m not one of them, and I admire what’s going on here. It’s a very direct, tactile experience that rewards experimentation and exploration, and just says “hey, come play with me, I won’t bite”. This, frankly, is how systems should be designed.
The lack of multitasking (due to be added in OS4 later in the year) is much less of an issue than I expected. Apps remember where you were, and tend to launch fast so switching between, say, Safari and an email that you’re in the middle of writing, works just fine and feels no different to true multitasking. The only thing missing is if you have apps which need to actively do things when you switch – such as IM or voice messaging, or music players other than the built-in iPod features. But honestly, so far I’m not missing it, even though I can imagine it being useful in some cases.
Many have said this is a bigger iPod Touch. They’re right, but in the same way that a bay window is just a bigger porthole. If you think that doesn’t matter, maybe you wouldn’t mind replacing all the windows in your house with portholes. In my opinion, the size of this device is absolutely perfect – for the purposes use it for (see below).
So What’s It Good For?
These are the primary things the iPad is being used for in our house:
- Checking mail, web, news, social networks at home in a casual setting. When we’re doing things at home, watching TV, playing non-PC games, having guests around, or just between other things, it’s often useful to quickly check email or look something up on the web. Getting the laptop out takes too much time and it’s too bulky if you have friends around, and a phone is often too cramped, particularly if you want to show the contents to others or you want to type more comfortably. The iPad has instantly become the way my wife and I do all these things when we’re not at the PC anyway, and it works really well. Websites display legibly with no scrolling around, typing is fast (slower than a real keyboard but much faster than a phone). Most importantly, it doesn’t feel like a ‘work’ device and fits into a casual / social setting perfectly. My preferred way to check the detail of the day’s news after breakfast is now on the iPad via the Reuter’s app. YouTube works great on it too, I can catch up with my subscriptions very comfortably this way. As for the lack of Flash – in almost 3 days, I haven’t noticed, and I don’t think my wife even knows that Flash is not available. Maybe it’ll be an issue some time, but not so far.
- Touch gaming. I’ve specifically added ‘touch’ there because people trying to play normal games with traditional controls (using virtual joysticks etc) are completely barking up the wrong tree. Games on the iPad, like the iPhone, work best when they’re designed with a touch interface in mind, or at least adapt well to it (e.g. Plants vs Zombies). Flight Control and Harbormaster are good examples of this, where there’s just no way you could implement a game like this efficiently with anything other than touch controls, and they click in 2 seconds flat. To be honest, my wife has the most experience of the games so far, but the fact that it’s hard to get her off them is a fairly solid endorsement of the gaming capabilities of the device
- Documentation. I don’t think I’d use a device like this for casual reading. A paperback is more rugged, cheap, and appropriate in the majority of cases than even dedicated devices like the Kindle, IMO. However, I do think e-readers are perfect for reference documentation, the kind of stuff you need to access randomly, search and dip into at a moment’s notice, often over several volumes, and for that I’m using GoodReader. Of course, if you’d be using that documentation at a PC anyway, you don’t need an e-reader. However, if you’re not at a PC, and you need access to this kind of information, then e-readers suddenly become useful. Because I have a minority usage for this, a dedicated e-reader has never been a worthwhile purchase for me, but as one feature in a multi-function device – that’s useful. In particular, I run a D&D campaign one night a week, and thus far have always needed a big stack of books next to me, which is a pain for space when we have a full crowd in. I’ve tried using laptops before, but they suck – they take up too much room and if you have them in a comfortable position in front of you they’re just too distracting. The iPad is the perfect size, and replaces several physical tomes with fully bookmarked, searchable texts, and it can sit to the side of me, available but not obtrusive, large enough to read but not too large to dominate the space. It’s by far the most practical device I’ve ever come across for this purpose, and I can’t help but think others will find places where it’s useful too.
- Photos. This might seem odd to call out as its own bullet point, but actually I think this is significant. Since we transitioned to digital photos, it’s made sharing them with family more awkward. Sure, you can use Facebook, but firstly – shockingly – many friends / family members don’t use Facebook (and no, I’m not going to pressure them to use it), and secondly it’s actually nice to show photos to people in person, and, you know, talk about them. Interact. Face to face. Radical stuff I know, but Facebook doesn’t solve that problem. In the past we’ve taken a laptop to other people’s houses, but that just feels clunky and geeky. And we don’t want to get them all printed, because that’s just a massive waste. And digital photo frames of any decent size are too expensive to justify. Enter the iPad – which can double as a photo frame and is very good at being a medium to share photos in person, just because its form factor works well – it’s easy to pass around or look at from multiple directions (rather than everyone crowding around a laptop screen). It’s a digital photo viewer that works in a multi-person environment, and the display is still large enough to do them justice.
- Sketching. It may not be a match for my wife’s Wacom tablet, but as a casual sketching tool (via SketchBook Pro) it works quite well. Obviously the touch interface is a no-brainer for this – it’s missing things like pressure sensitivity and angle detection like the Wacom kit does, but even so it’s far more natural than drawing with a mouse, and considerably cheaper to try out than buying a full featured tablet.
The important thing is that none of these things could be done as well with devices of another form factor, IMO. You could do them, but you’d be compromising something – such as screen space, comfort, instant accessibility. I think a pad form factor hits a sweet spot for these things, and that Apple’s implementation is confident and slick. In the end, that’s all I really wanted.
Conclusion
My personal opinion is that there definitely is room for a device of this form factor in the lives of many people. You can argue that iPad version 2 will have more features, or that an Android tablet (whenever they arrive in a product form) will do better later on and will have more apps because of the open architecture, but I think the phrase ‘a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush’ is relevant here. In technology, there’s always going to be something better in the future, that’s a universal constant at any point in time, for any product. Right now, the iPad pushes exactly the buttons I wanted it to push – that doesn’t mean there isn’t potential for more, but what it does do, it does extremely well. And more importantly, it does it right now, not at some theoretical point in the future. That has value to me.
Perhaps the best illustration is that the iPad has been in pretty much constant use since purchase, barring when it’s on charge, and so far the split has been 70/30 in favour of my wife, whose review comments are simple: “It’s cool”. I concur.
May 31st, 2010 at 5:05 pm
My girlfriend’s parents got one, and I agree with your review on all counts. Even her father, who is a Luddite and opposed getting an iPad, now uses it all the time for it’s games.
On thing you haven’t mentioned, is that its a great “vacation computer”. It easily replaces a suitcase full of board games, card games, and videos players. A vacation also turns the iPad’s weakness, poor “work” abilities, into a strength because who wants to do work on vacation?
June 1st, 2010 at 11:07 am
The data pads in star trek always annoyed me. They keep giving them to other people. Riker must have a stack of the damn things, people are always coming all the way to the bridge to hand him some progress report. Surely the enterprise computer has enough spare cpu left over to run an email server.
I touched an ipad 3 days ago in a store. I slid my finger one way, the desktop panned over to a new page. I slid my finger the opposite direction, nothing happened. That used up all the curiosity I had for it, so I left.
If it was really cheap, I’d consider one (or several) as a touch based game panel for X-Plane and DCS Black Shark. Multitouch would be good for throttle quadrants (although for the price of an ipad I could buy a real throttle quadrant or two).
June 1st, 2010 at 11:19 am
@Joe: yeah, I fully intend to take the iPad on holiday instead of my laptop, which I sadly do take on holiday to keep up with email every few days – that’s the cost of being self-employed.
@Kojack: Somehow I don’t think it would look as ‘ship-like’ if Riker got all of his updates via email or Twitter
“@Geordie warp factor 9 pronto! #orders #warpdrive #aliensabouttoeatourfaces”
June 1st, 2010 at 2:34 pm
@kojack: I used to think the same thing, all that technology and they pass around data pads? But, it occured to me, quite some time ago, that it’s a television show, and the “baton” handling of the pads was more about social interaction than it was just a sharing of information. The data pad exchange was often just a segue into other topics. Wouldn’t be much of a show if human interaction was replaced by all that tech.
June 1st, 2010 at 2:56 pm
I smell an iPad app from sinbad on the horizon.
June 3rd, 2010 at 3:03 am
Thank you for the review. It was a good and balanced review from a non-fanboy
users perspective. I share many of your observations on what are deal or no-deal
issues with the device except now you have dashed my prime reason (a bit) for
wanting an iPad – PDF reading. As I read a lot of PDFs on the laptop and have
often wished I could take apart the monitor just to sit back and read PDF
comfortably. Now you have spoilt that illusion (and possible justification to my
wife) for me. I realize though that it is not your problem but mine so I wont
tell her that Steve got it and thinks its no good for PDF reading!
Anyway, please continue to post on your experiences with the iPad as days go by.
June 3rd, 2010 at 8:49 am
I didn’t say it’s no good for PDF reading, in fact I use it for PDFs all the time (reference stuff though). It’s just my personal preference that when reading for pleasure, a paperback is just more practical – I don’t have to care about scuffing it or getting sand in it, for example. I think the same about all e-readers – they’re great as an alternative to reading on a monitor, but I wouldn’t use one on the beach.
June 3rd, 2010 at 4:32 pm
The e-book reading has hooked me too. But Asus is launching E-Pad, which has Windows & on it, so I am thinking about it more and more. It will be less locked to apple apps.
Is not there a thing like I-Pad which uses Linux?
June 3rd, 2010 at 4:33 pm
E – Pad will use Windows 7. It would be cool if ur blog had the functionality to edit posts.
June 3rd, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Microsoft killed off their tablet device (the Courier) and HP cancelled their Windows 7 Slate too – personally I suspect they concluded they just couldn’t compete and they needed to go back to the drawing board. Frankly I think Android is the most likely candidate for a workable slate, Windows 7 and Linux are too chunky and not optimised for touch devices unless you strip them down, and why would you when Android is already there? If the thinking is to get Windows and Linux apps on there as-is, that’s sadly misguided.
Most of the ‘iPad killers’ won’t even appear until 2011 and goodness knows if they’ll be any good. You may not like the App Store, but I can go there and get a ton of applications designed specifically for this device, and they generally work very well. Good luck using general Windows apps on a touch device – it really matters that apps are designed for touch. All the other manufacturers are launching their own stores too, presumably populated with touch-friendly apps, but it remains to be seen whether they’ll be able to compete with the App Store.
I stand by my decision to buy a device that works really well, *right now*. Everything else is just speculation.
June 3rd, 2010 at 9:09 pm
After reading all these comments, I am very much inclined towards buying my first ever Apple device. 10 hours battery time with a decent e-Reader alone had me convinced. I would like to know if I can use the device without ever connecting to iTunes. I want to just read the HTML on the web and PDFs.
Steve thanks for clarifying that it is a decent e-reader, I agree that the iPad, or any device for that matter, wont ever replace paper books. Your comment that the device was pretty much in user since bought says it all.
Troll and vapour-ware alert: Android uses Dalvik, a Java inspired VM, and uses Java for programming apps. I cannot see them getting 10+ hrs on their existing hardware with multitasking and flash anytime soon.
June 4th, 2010 at 6:20 am
Concerning the Android tablets, there are already quite a few Android tablets in China. I am not exactly sure about the quality of them, but some of their features seem quite comparable to the iPad
Concerning availability of Android tablets outside of Asia, the Dell Streak (5 inches) is apparently going to be followed by a larger version. Dell has done some promising stuff with Android, so I really look forward to seeing their future products. Even more promising is Intel’s MeeGo tablet slated for release in early 2011. The tablet has already received good reviews, and with a 1.5Ghz processor it is going to be very powerful. Judging by youtube video reviews, too, the MeeGo platform, even in beta stage right now, is far more advanced than the iPhone OS. Not only that, Nvidia is also preparing to release Android tablets, presumably offering a more game-oriented experience. I never buy first generation Apple products, and by the time the iPad is released, I expect there to be several great Android/MeeGo tablets on the market.
June 4th, 2010 at 7:16 am
“iPad, or any device for that matter, wont ever replace paper books”, situation changes when one is a writer and has over 200 paperback novels like me. also it is great for quickly accesing any documentation. I saw more on Android and it ceratinly looks the best bet as an open alternative. Currently i pad really has no match fro its uses, and I agree that what it does it does very good and certainly it has its own place.
On the other hand since I have started using Ubuntu Linux I have found it the most user friendly and easy Linux that gets the job done not to mention it doubles as virus protector. My Window only friends are also finding it good and easily adapting to it.
June 4th, 2010 at 9:09 am
@typist: I use GoodReader and DropBox to sync my PDFs. Evernote is also good if you want to easily cut snippets out of web pages and archive them in your personal library (again, synced across machines). You need an Apple ID to buy the apps but after that the sync is not via iTunes – Evernote does its own and GoodReader can sync in a number of ways (I use DropBox).
@kinjal: but do you really need to carry all 200 novels with you at any time? If so, you read faster than I do
Since I read novels mostly on holiday any e-reader would have to be pretty rugged to be useful to me, none of the existing candidates are there yet. Maybe once cheap plastic chips / screens become a reality. I can only see myself using an e-reader for reference docs in a more sanitised environment like the sofa.
Ubuntu Lucid is the best desktop Linux to date, I have it on a test machine here. It’s still my 3rd choice as as a desktop OS though (Mac is my fave, then Win7, then Lucid). If you only ever surf the web & check email it’s probably fine but much beyond that and its geekiness and lower usability levels soon appear.
June 4th, 2010 at 9:20 am
@irrdev: again, you’re talking 2011 and after. Feel free to wait if you like, I didn’t want to – I’d rather have something I know works right now, and already has a great ecosystem around it. Everyone and their dog is working on something to beat the iPad, but until I see one on the shelves, with a library of apps to rival what I can get right now on the iPad, it’s just bullet points on a marketing sheet.
If something really good comes out next year on Android or MeeGo then I might get one of those too. But for the next 8-12 months I’ll have already been using something instead of just staring at concept demos and dreaming. I honestly think some people underestimate the value of actually having something in your hand that works right now. When these Android tablets you talk about come out, or iPad v2, there will be something else around the corner (in prototype form) that will be better than them too, in about the same time scale you’re talking about. If you think like that, you’ll never buy anything. iPad v1 does enough, IMO, to justify itself, regardless of what will inevitably be better in 12 months time.
June 5th, 2010 at 8:04 am
@steve, I need atleast 50 novels with me most of time I am typing my own novel, for checking back the nuances in writing of favourite authors, or just to plain read again some interesting section from various novels to make portmonteau in my head and then again convert and create something new. Mostly I use all this in desktop at home, but I see value of I-pad more for this as it is movable. My novels and novel synopsis from wikipedia(itself over 2GB) serve as creative documentation for me, whenever I run short on ideas, And then there are all those computer e-books while I work on my game engine(which is very nice to have in pdf form on computer while programming.)
Having all this info accesible in movable form(not laptop for same reason as yours), is immensely valuable to me. While not many are novelist, many people do need reference documentation of various things, and i-pad seems right at home there. And add to it, you can sketch if u feel bored, and other benefits are added bonus. So I am feeling like i-pad is great. You are tight about having tech now in hand instead of some future promise:). This has immense value which many people do not recognise.
I will suggest buying anything according to needs. My first PC upgrade was to play UT2004 and I was happy with it for 3 years and my second upgrade was to play Crysis and I am again happy with it since last 3 years. If the thing is not too expensive, available right now, is very useful fro deired purpose I feel very satisfied buying and using it.
June 5th, 2010 at 8:08 am
Probably, I read 3 times faster then you but mainly that is due to my heavy amount of reading both fiction and non fiction, I just read load of English matter every day. That certainly has made me want read faster and regular practice has increased my speed. Stopping for 3 months generally drops it. It is more like practice in running and then dropping out of it.
Also I think using i-pad can be done comfortably on sofa(back pain)(atleast for reading and writing books) instead of laptop or Desktop:) and taht definetly is very valuable.
June 5th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Ah, so for you, novels are actually reference documentation, so that makes sense.
June 7th, 2010 at 8:08 am
he he he, kind of, but they are very much fun and interesting also
Kind of the most interesting reference documentation.
June 13th, 2010 at 2:03 am
I had a play with one in a store the other day. It looked like a nice piece of hardware, but for me I have no real need. And I don’t think I’d buy one even if I did. Apple’s app store antics, closing and changing of protocols to slow interoperability as well as actively attacking competition with ludicrous patents sealed that for me a long time ago.
June 14th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
@blankthemuffin, while apple apps are doing what they should be doing right now and that is great value, your concern of interoperabilty is also true. but ipad has value and that too just now as steve says, not in future. you may try a ipad photocopy with windows 7 or android, and sometimes photocopies may also turn good. But one will have to wait and see.
June 16th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
Had a play with one at work today – really liked it, but don’t think I’m going to stump up the cash. Think I’ll save up for the new iPhone instead. You got an iPhone Steve?
June 16th, 2010 at 8:18 pm
Nope, please see point 1 in the original post
June 17th, 2010 at 11:57 am
I haven’t played with an iPad yet, but I did briefly watch someone else using one. I am warming up to the concept of tablets; 6 months ago I would have said they were pointless. But recently I found myself using my Palm Pre a few times in the evening to check emails, twitter and facebook instead of booting up my laptop. I would love to see a tablet running WebOS, which I quite like but I don’t see me buying a tablet. I’m trying to reduce the number of gadgets in my house, not buy more!
June 17th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Hehe. But yeah, this is where I was coming from. Personally, I found myself using my phone to check email, or check something on the web, at home in between other things quite a lot – cases where booting the laptop is too much hassle. Also sometimes you want to show photos or videos to people, and a laptop is too awkward, it’s not ‘social’, and the phone is just too small. As a device that blends in to social and casual use, in the home (not in your pocket), the iPad is very useful to me.
Reduce the number of gadgets in your house? What madness is this??
Seriously though, I think the trend is in the opposite direction, away from consolidation of gadgets (the way MS would want it – everyone concentrating on do-it-all PCs) and towards separate gadgets that are best for the purpose at hand, exchanging data. PCs for more major work, phones on the go, tablets in between. Plus game consoles, smart TVs, and goodness knows what else. IMO the only reason things have been so unified in the past is because that’s all we had the tech to do.
HP bought Palm exclusively for their WebOS so I think you can expect a tablet based on it eventually. They canned their Windows 7 tablet, I assume because it just didn’t work that well, and I expect that a WebOS one will replace it.
June 17th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
Oops, sorry…I first read your post a few weeks ago, and only came back after playing with the iPad at work, completely forgot you had said that.
I wonder if your feelings toward the iphone are based on the fact that you work from home, and are therefore not as ‘mobile’, like a daily commute to the office for instance. I too find that using a phone to check email or to surf the web is infinity more convenient than a PC or even a laptop, and since I also want/need to have a mobile phone with me, on me at all times, I would prefer to do it all on something that was good at doing so. The only mobile phone small enough to still call a phone and yet do things like web browsing very well is the iPhone.
Even though I loved the look of the iPad, it would only ever sit in my lounge or come away on business trips. In other words its reduced weight and smaller size compared to a laptop are just not enough to be more convenient to carry around than a laptop is anyway.
June 18th, 2010 at 9:14 am
I’d certainly have an iPhone if I worked somewhere other than home. It wouldn’t replace the iPad though, for the same reasons I listed above.
A laptop is fine when I want to work at home, but it’s rubbish for casual / social situations in the home or at friends / family – I know because I’ve used one like that for years and it’s never felt suited to it. The iPad has a large enough screen to show photos and videos in a way that a phone is not, and is a realistic size to comfortably browse the net on & answer email, most importantly in a pick-up / put-down style, because it boots up and shuts down in less than a second. That fits into my home net use perfectly where both a phone and a laptop are sub-optimal (phone is too small, awkward to type on, laptop has too much inertia). The iPhone / iPod Touch do these things well for their size, but the iPad does it way better. It’s about mobility & form factor matching the purpose, and laptops and phones are either end of a spectrum which has plenty of space in between.
I think many techs find it hard to understand what people use it for because they’re inherently very task-focused. Tablets are more casual lifestyle devices. I think they’ll be huge, all the while baffling many traditionalists.
June 18th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Yeah you make a fair points. I guess in a few years time people everywhere might be carrying similar ‘tablets’ around like they do phones.
July 2nd, 2010 at 5:07 am
I smell an iPad app from sinbad on the horizon
December 30th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Dear Steve,
A follow-up to my previous comments: I decided to wait and get my hands on an Android tablet device, which I got around the beginning of December.
I got the Pandigital Novel (Canadian model) for a fraction of the cost compared to the iPad (Pandigital was $180 after taxes compared to $500 for the cheapest iPad before taxes. All Canadian dollars). The Pandigital weighs 0.34 kg which is lighter than an iPad (0.68 kg). The screen size of the Pandigital is smaller (7″ diagonal) compared to the iPad (9.7″ diagonal). While I found the screen size to be adequate for reading PDFs, it was not the most ideal size. Anyway, I prefer the open source PDF apps compared to factory-installed Adobe reader which can only be accessed after going through an online bookstore interface first. Adobe reader handles ePUB better than PDFs and it can turn off the back light for night time reading, which is great. I have done a lot of PDF reading on the device and like the fact that the sleep mode permits an instant on and off. Battery time is significantly lower than the iPad (6 hours compared to 10 hours) but that does not bother me for PDF reading since I invariably recharge it before the battery runs out.
All in all this was a cheap way for me to get into the market for the tablet device and to figure out what I really wanted from this form factor. I would definitely look for at least a 9″ screen and something lighter than the current Pandigital before I upgrade again.
The Android OS (ver 1.6), although being really old, was a big plus for me because the manufacture permits one to install a stock version of Android, so you can imagine the joy I felt when I saw the root prompt after I connected the Pandigital, running OpenAndroid, via USB to my Ubuntu laptop.
Thanks for your initial post and I hope you still like your iPad.
Cheers.