iPad

Righty ho then... review time once more.

I obtained and iPad a few weeks ago, and rather than do a spontaneous review, I've spent time getting to know it.

As many of you know, I'm not the biggest Apple fan.  I own a 2Gb iPod, but decided to get a BlackBerry instead of the iPhone.  However, the iPad proved too much of a temptation.

To  be honest, its' something that nobody needs, but once you have one, you'll wonder how you managed without it.

So, to the review.

Starting with the aesthetics.
It looks like a large iPod. Glass front! Minimilist on the buttons front. Actually, there are just 4 external buttons. The power switch, rotation lock, volume control and 'return to menu'.
The rest of the controls are contained within the graphical user interface.

There are three sizes of memory, I have the 16Gb, without 3G - I decided, that since I have phone, I didn't need the extra connectivity.  Wi-Fi is fine for me.

As for the 16Gb - that's also plenty.  I have four films, a boat-load of music, and a range of books.




In fact, that was one of the main reasons for getting the iPad.  I love to read, and having a host of reading material at my fingertips is really quite good.
As for the interface.  It is so intuitive, you just power it up and away you go.  There are a number of pre-installed apps (mail, video, YouTube, maps, calendar, notes etc).
However, where Apple have really struck gold is their App Store.

The range of applications available is staggering, and whilst many are iPhone, that don't scale too well, there are a vast number that have been re-engineered to take advantage of the iPad screen size.

I'm not going to review the apps - I'll leave that to another time; except I have one tip.  Instead of using iBooks for your reading material, download the free Amazon Kindle app.  Why?
Well, the books on iBooks are priced in pounds (and there really isn't a huge choice), however, the books through the Kindle app are sold in US Dollars - which makes them much cheaper to buy.  And the range is massive.

The battery lasts up to 10 hours, although watching films can reduce that.  The crisp, clear images and ease of use make this a quality product.

Do I miss not having 3G? - definitely not.  I have books loaded, music loaded and films loaded.  All I need is occasional access to wi-fi to update my news feeds.

So, am I pleased with it.  Definitely yes.

In a future post, I will review some of the apps I have downloaded.