iPad Capacity-which one

[sadievan]

My sister in law is itching to get an iPad. She's looking at the 16B or the 32GB. What do you all 'keep' on your iPad hard drives and which capacity do you recommend.

Thanks
Carol

[covfam]

I have all 588 songs on my ipad 2, i at one time had 17 episodes of my favorite show and 8 books, and 3 games (not casual games but large MMO's and rpgs games) , 1 navigation app, and 15 other apps, and i use a grand total 27 gigs of space.
I dont have to have all that on at once 13.5 gigs of that were 19.5 hours of my television shows wich ill be removing all but 4 episodes from my device that is stored on itunes.

I know your uses may vary but it does give you an idea of what real world usage looks like. i have a 64 gig ipad 2 while i wouldnt recoment that for anyone who doesnt hold alot of stuff on thier tablet. i do recomend at least the 32 gig for growing room. imho 16 gig is too limiting, my 588 songs (several years worth of ipod music transfered to my ipad2) takes up 5 gigs alone.

to break it down for you, 588 songs = 5 gigs, 19 hours of television video = 13.5 gigs 8 books = 2 gigs, 15 apps including 3 games = the remaining 6 gigs. hope that helps you judge better what you need.

[sadievan]

Originally Posted by covfam

I have all 588 songs on my ipad 2, i at one time had 17 episodes of my favorite show and 8 books, and 3 games (not casual games but large MMO's and rpgs games) , 1 navigation app, and 15 other apps, and i use a grand total 27 gigs of space.
I dont have to have all that on at once 13.5 gigs of that were 19.5 hours of my television shows wich ill be removing all but 4 episodes from my device that is stored on itunes.

I know your uses may vary but it does give you an idea of what real world usage looks like. i have a 64 gig ipad 2 while i wouldnt recoment that for anyone who doesnt hold alot of stuff on thier tablet. i do recomend at least the 32 gig for growing room. imho 16 gig is too limiting, my 588 songs (several years worth of ipod music transfered to my ipad2) takes up 5 gigs alone.

to break it down for you, 588 songs = 5 gigs, 19 hours of television video = 13.5 gigs 8 books = 2 gigs, 15 apps including 3 games = the remaining 6 gigs. hope that helps you judge better what you need.

Yes thank you. That breakdown helps a lot. Will send this to her. She probably won't put music on it, but may do movies or audio books and apps.

On another note, you have 8 books that take up 2 gigs? That seems like a lot of space for only 8 books.

Carol

[kjk]

If your sister is interested in taking movies, TV shows, and audiobooks around with her, I'd recommend the 32G. If she were mostly doing apps, music, and ebooks (and browsing), then the 16G would be fine. Also, if her movie and TV watching was limited to Hulu Plus and Netflix, which both stream, then she might not need the extra storage.

The next iOS update will bring a lot of cloud features to the iPad (access to stuff stored on Apple's servers). A lot of cloud strategies entail streaming content directly from the web, which would seem to mean the device itself won't need a lot of on-board storage space. But, Apple's cloud strategy (so far) sounds like they expect you to download stuff as you need it to your device, as opposed to streaming. So you may not see as much savings in terms of storage usage. (Obviously you could keep deleting content before downloading more, but it isn't that optimal a solution for some)


I've had both the iPad and iPad 2 at 32G, and had no problems keeping them full.
But my sister now has my iPad, and she doesn't watch movies or TV shows, so she probably could do well with a 16G iPad...next time

[HarryT]

The iPad does not have a hard drive - it uses flash memory.

As far as capacity goes, it really depends what the intended usage is. If it's reading books, the cheapest 16GB model will be fine. If you want to store video, get the highest capacity you can afford.

[rcuadro]

I think that, no matter what you are going to store in it, you should get the one with the larges capacity that you can afford.
it never fails. You get the small one to save some money and in a month or two you fill it up with stuff you never though you would store in it.
Ad for me, I have the 32 gig and initially had about 3 gigs worth of books and about 5 gigs of music... and now I am sitting at right about 20 gig between books, music, movies, and work/school documents.

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by rcuadro

I think that, no matter what you are going to store in it, you should get the one with the larges capacity that you can afford.
it never fails. You get the small one to save some money and in a month or two you fill it up with stuff you never though you would store in it.
Ad for me, I have the 32 gig and initially had about 3 gigs worth of books and about 5 gigs of music... and now I am sitting at right about 20 gig between books, music, movies, and work/school documents.

Ditto on getting the biggest that you can afford. About a thousand songs and another thousand photos, and my 16 gb is nearly full.

[brdwygurl]

I would go with the 32g if possible. I have music, audio and reg ebooks and apps on mine and am at about 16g.

Sure I could manage with less by deleting and moving things on and off as needed, but it's much easier not to have to stress about taking up space.

Plus if you would ever consider selling or trading your ipad, the higher capacity will be more attractive.

[bathos]

I went for the 32GB one as I was getting double the storage space for not that much more money. By the time you add up all of the apps, music, videos, books, comics, etc it makes sense for me. I have a 16GB iphone and am constantly taking things off to put other things on.

[rcuadro]

Originally Posted by brdwygurl

Plus if you would ever consider selling or trading your ipad, the higher capacity will be more attractive.

Yep... I just cored an iPad 1, 16 gig with case and BT keyboard for $175

The iPad will be for a family member and the BT keyboard for my iMac...

[covfam]

Originally Posted by sadievan

Yes thank you. That breakdown helps a lot. Will send this to her. She probably won't put music on it, but may do movies or audio books and apps.

On another note, you have 8 books that take up 2 gigs? That seems like a lot of space for only 8 books.

Carol

carol i didnt realize it but i also had my 6 audio books on there as well and the 6 audio books and the 8 ebooks are what came out to 2 gigs on my book section i hadnt realized that i had the audio books on my device still must have forgoten to unclick them last time i synched :P

[HomeInMyShoes]

32.

I've got a 16GB iTouch pretty much crammed with:
1500 songs, 11 movies, 300 photos, 4 applications, no books

Sure you can always move stuff around, but it's nice to have some variety and with an iPad, you'll want way more applications than I use on the old iTouch.

[sadievan]

Originally Posted by covfam

carol i didnt realize it but i also had my 6 audio books on there as well and the 6 audio books and the 8 ebooks are what came out to 2 gigs on my book section i hadnt realized that i had the audio books on my device still must have forgoten to unclick them last time i synched :P

Thanks. She does like her audio books.

Carol

[sadievan]

Thanks to all. I am going to tell her the verdict is to get the 32 gig.

Carol

[Synergi]

I would go with the 32GB. I have 8GB just in Apps..