Posted in
Electronics,
Review on 22 Apr 2010 at 6:35 am
I have had my iPad 64 GB Wifi for about four days now, and I LOVE IT! There are a few things of course which are annoying but overall I think Apple did an amazing job with the product. The iPad itself feels very good in your hands, I love the Aluminum bezel and they have the right amount of buttons to control the iPad. The screen is amazing, just the perfect amount of brightness and you can really enjoy it, I go through my RSS feeds so smoothly and easily, the one thing is that it attracts finger prints so you have to keep wiping constantly it to keep it clean. Reading comics and watching a few shows on it is pretty good, but after a while you do get tired of looking at the screen, but I got lost using the iPad and forgot the time around me which tells you how much this product pulls you in. But the iPad is only as good as the Applications that you can use with it, and luckily there are quiet a few different applciations from gaming to utilities. I like the buttons on the iPad works smoothly to control the volume and locking it up if need be, and you can lock the screen in a certain vertical or landscape mode which is very smart on their part. What surprised me the most was the battery, with normal use it lasted over a two day period before finishing the battery, watching some TV shows, surfing, reading a couple of comics, and playing video games. Some people complain about the speaker being of lower quality but I honestly think its decent for what the iPad is supposed to do, I was surprised it had one in the first place, if it isn’t what your looking for then plug in a pair of head phones and you are good to go. Another good edition is being able to add any App or even website for that matter to the App bar at the bottom, so you can really put your frequently used Apps and websites in one location.
My Applications:
- Jump – Remote Desktop to My Server and Computers (Must Have)
- Marvel – Marvel Comics loaded up on the amazing screen.
- IDW Transformers – Downloading every Transformer Comic there is, I can’t get enough, reading comics on the iPad is a fantastic experience and I really got into it forgetting myself
- GoodReader – Reads, PDF, Test Documents, Images and a few other files on the iPad and on other machiens and servers. (Must Have)
- NewsRack – Best RSS Reader which integrated with GoogleReader, smooth, loads up articles in a different window and if you click a link it takes you to it (Must Have)
- AirVideo – Watch any type of video file on your iPad from any PC or Server, works perfectly for all my anime and tv shows, don’t have to purchase the TV shows (Must Have)
- Accuweather – The best and smoothest weather app for the iPad, the other ones just didn’t work so well. Kind of annoyed with the WeatherBug and when I tried Accuweather I was very happy
- Shazam – It has a built-in Microphone and Speaker, so you can catch the song you want and you can listen to it, better then the iPod Touch in my situation since I don’t have an iPhone.
- GQ – This has turned into an interesting read, lots of time just to flip through the magazine, but all the Ads are very very very annoying. GQ has to rethink the way they have the magazine, it should be smart and intuitive, not just cut and paste from the magazines (Hold Off)
- PopularSciene – Making the magazine interactive is smart, but the content isn’t there yet and applications need to be refined a little (Hold Off)
- SkyGrid – All the upcoming news from multiple feeds brought to you and updated, its fantastic how it keeps updating, you can view the stories which are most popular then choose the articles within it that you want to read.
- SportsTap – Football, NFL, NBA, College Football, Tennis, and Golf all at your finger tips. I use it to follow the updates on the NFL mostly and its pretty damn good.
- BBC News – Different the iPhone/iPod its presented in video format as well as articles which makes it pretty interesting.
Games:
- TopGun – Its fun but annoying when you haven’t gotten the movements right
- FlightControl HD – Addictive game, you can place for hours, you have to direct planes to land around other planes, and no mistake is accetable
- Harbor Master – One of those fun time consuming games, but drives you nuts! You have to dock and undock ships in the right port without them crashing!
- Scrabble – Its a fun old game with new life, there are so many words that I don’t know any more
- Red Alert – Command and Conquer is fantastic, the only annoying thing is selecting a lot of troops but who can imagine that an iPad can play a full Real Time Strategy game such as this!
- N.O.V.A – Fun first person shooter, a different experience but not for everyone
- Implode – Blowing up buildings, who doesn’t enjoy that!
The Problems:
- Right now the Wifi works fine but sometimes it does have its issues, seems online some people are already complaining, and to get a lot of content it needs bandwidth and constant connectivity
- Without Flash somewebsites just don’t show their full content and its a very easy fix for Apple but that doesn’t seem to be happening
- Navigating the large amount of Apps for the iPad is a bit of task, you just can’t seem to find the right App for your need. I’m looking for a Networking App but can’t seem to find it
- iPod/iPhone Apps should not be installed on the iPad with the X2 Zoom functionality, it just looks wrong and tacky
Do I think every should get an iPad, yes I definately do, Am I addicted to it? Positively! Its not for everyone but everyone who I know has it is really enjoying it, I’m trying to fill mine with as much content as possible so as to use it when I’m traveling and have no wifi connectivity, which is the main purpose in my case, and the comics are doing that perfectly.