iPad MR's Opinion of the iPad? - Page 2

pshrynk · 05-07-2010, 10:37 AM

I voted love it, even though mine has yet to ship. I've played with one on three occasions and could not peel myself away from it. I'm not an Apple fAnboy, because I loathe my wife's MacBook, but I do like my Touch and agree that this is a supersized version of that.

banjobama · 05-07-2010, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AprilHare

I loathes it, I do! I admit it.
It's Apple branded, has that awful LCD display, ties you into buying apps only from Apple, doesn't have a USB port, and is the wanted object of Apple fanboys everywhere.
What's not to loathe?

I'm afraid I agree!

radamo · 05-07-2010, 12:35 PM

I am the tech geek in my family and had no desire to get one. I like to tinker and tweak all of my tech toys. My wife wanted one, which really took me off guard. I bought her one and have to say although I can't tweak or tinker it really is a slick device. I use it quite frequently and it has replace my 505 for my evening reading sessions. Once I have a case for it, I might even consider sneaking it into my brief case for business trips.
RA

rock · 05-07-2010, 12:39 PM

I got to play with the iPad yesterday finally.

It is nice what surprised me was the speed. But after a hour of playing with it I was not overwhelmed by it as I hoped. The only thing that appealed to me was the iBooks app and the Kindle app which of course will keep me busy with it if I ever got one, but as fast as the browser was many of the sites I go to are not made for iPad (but like I said before I wouldn't use it for browsing). Though Mobile Read looked great. The reason that really got me thinking not getting it is that I felt like I am just holding my iPhone that received a Super Mario Mushroom and got bigger.

It is really slick it is. Everything is fast but not something I can see myself personally using all the time. Though Magazines from Zinio looked great, Winnie The Pooh looked really good in iBooks (only lag was loading the pictures from the book; page turning was swift!).

Maybe if I had the chance to play some games, maybe I would of had a different view, but this was under the companies account so I couldn't go around downloading N.O.V.A. lol.

Honestly if this was cheaper, I get it as an e-reader alone, but it hasn't convinvce me to get it just yet. Maybe a killer app will it to change my mind.

Alexander Turcic · 05-07-2010, 05:10 PM

Got the 16GB non-3G edition (i.e. the smallest) earlier this week.

What can I say. I love it! I love the speed and the slickness of the built-in applications. Just for browsing the Web, for checking my emails and for showing my latest photos it's the best tool I can imagine. Battery life is outstanding. I wouldn't use it for serious ebook reading because for that I find E-Ink more enjoyable. But for reading the news, or comics, it's wonderful.

I do miss a feature allowing me to print documents or photos. My printer supports the Bonjour protocol, and it's hooked up to the home network, so I really don't understand why Apple hasn't managed to add printing support yet. I know there are a few third party apps to remedy this, but from what I read, they aren't doing that much of a great job.

Another complaint is that I had to install iTunes again. I was so happy when I got rid of that resource hog (Windows user here!) when I gave my iPod away to a friend. I don't like iTunes because it's bloated and slow, and it adds all kinds of stuff to my autostart list that I usually don't even need when I use Windows.

Lastly, be careful when you buy the iPad in the US and take it back to your country somewhere else, like in my case to Switzerland. Currently, Apple does not support the iPad anywhere else, and if you try to login with your non-US iTunes account on your iPad, it will say that it's not supported. You can use iTunes on your computer to download apps to the iPad, even with your non-US account, but you'll quickly notice that some apps are missing. Most importantly for me - iBooks! Only way around it is to make a new iTunes account with a US-based address (fortunately for me, my wife is from the US). And if you don't have a credit card with a US billing address, make sure to buy a few iTunes gift cards that you can use to fill your account with some credits to make your purchases.

My heart will be broken when I am going to hand the iPad over to my father, but I will remain happy knowing that Apple has just started a new trend that will surely bring out a lot of interesting devices (also from the competitors - I am eyeing Google here!).

radleyp · 05-07-2010, 05:26 PM

I got my 3G version last Friday. That night I lay in bed reading but after some 30-40 minutes began to feel as if I was staring into headlights. When I work on a computer, like right now, I look at the screen for a few minutes, then turn away, then turn back, but when I am reading I am staring at the screen for many minutes at a time, and then I wind up noticing the light shining right back at me. When I stopped reading and looked away, I felt as if I had been staring at the sun. The iPad makes me pine for a similar device with an e-ink screen, I will not be able to use it to read for long periods of time. It's a slick netbook replacement but for me at any rate it's a subpar book reader.

cmdahler · 05-07-2010, 05:43 PM

I love the thing. I have a 64GB non-3G (I have no need for constant internet access; the GPS chip might have been nice, but not worth the extra wad of money just for that). No, it's not a full laptop replacement, but it's very useful as an internet access device and a personal gaming platform, etc.

As a reader, I am very happy with the screen size and the ability to display color (Umberto Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana is just beautiful on it). IBooks is underwhelming for it's lack of full ePub standard support (embedded fonts, etc.), but I never read ePubs anyway, so I couldn't care less about that app. Goodreader is my reading platform of choice; I export all of my books from InDesign as a PDF specifically formatted for the iPad's screen, and reading those on Goodreader, I feel like I'm reading a hardback book. Very nice.

The only real drawback for me as a reader is its low DPI - only 132 compared to my Sony's 160, and with smaller fonts plus the far sharper contrast which only serves to dramatically highlight this shortcoming, I really notice the difference. Reading anything less than around 11pt in a serif font styled for print really borders on uncomfortable due to jagged lines and so forth (the enclosed upper half of the lower-case "e" in Adobe Garamond Premiere Pro is almost indistinguishable at 10 point or less - really starts to look like a "c"). Sans-serif fonts designed for monitor displays look fine, so there's no problem with browsing, but I really don't want to read books in Arial or Tahoma. If Apple ever produces an iPad with something like 200 DPI or more, that would be a stunning reader at any point size in any font, but I suppose an LCD of that quality would be quite expensive.

Anyway, overall I'm very happy with the device.

Rique · 05-07-2010, 07:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

I believe the poll result would be very different, if it was posted in general section of the forum.

And I believe the poll result would be very different if the question was posed strictly to iPad owners... the subject line currently is "MR's opinion of the iPad" - I believe we'd have a far more favorable sample set with this subject line - "(iPad owners only) - please rate your iPad".

I bought my wife the wi-fi model, thinking my MBP and iPod Touch were all I needed. After helping her to set it up and load her books, I was back for a wifi/3g of my own in three weeks time!

We both love the iPad.

Harmon · 05-11-2010, 10:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sischa

its ok ... but i love it. :-)

I don't read much books on it. I use my kindle's for that. But it is the best multi media consuming machine i have could call my own. Surfing is great. Videos are uber great. Magazines = great. Newspapers = awsom.

I'm pretty much in the same boat. I find that the iPad is tilting me toward acquiring a kindle. Except that the kindle I want is a touchscreen kindle. Or a downsized iPad, something between the iPad & the Touch/iPhone.

My sonys are sidelined. I have a few books on them but there's no interaction with the iPad. What with whispernet & Instapaper, I could feed a lot of reading to a kindle from my iPad & iPhone.

Maggie Leung · 05-13-2010, 10:24 AM

I love mine, though I'd like improvements such as lighter weight and longer battery life. I'll switch if another company comes up with a much better tablet.

iPad has replaced netbooks for me while on the go. It's also largely replaced my Kindle. I used that extensively for 15 months. For more extensive computing, I still use a laptop.

I quickly became spoiled by iPad's larger screen and backlighting, which I set on low. I love touch screen for all sorts of scrolling (news, blogs, shopping), as well as book reading. I used to read books on netbook before Kindle emerged and found it annoying to change pages with a mouse or on netbook keyboard, because it was easy to accidentally move the cursor off the next-page icon. That was a pain, because I prefer to read books slumped in an easy chair or in bed. Of course, those are personal preferences, and I've worked (editing) and read for leisure on computers for decades without eye problems.

I'd wanted a tablet for years (mostly for e-books, e-mail and Internet), and Apple was the first to offer enough functionality to serve my needs. I don't own or plan to buy any other types of Apple computers. I hope iPads (and other tablets) spread quickly. I don't want to be an Apple demo person, and I don't want to draw attention with my stuff.

View Poll Results: How do like the iPad?
I love it	78	62.90%
It's okay	15	12.10%
Take it or leave it	14	11.29%
I'm not satisfied	8	6.45%
I loathe it	9	7.26%
Voters: 124. You may not vote on this poll

05-07-2010, 12:39 PM	#19
rock Addict Posts: 240 Karma: 18772 Join Date: Oct 2009 Device: Nook, Astak EZ Reader Pocket, iPhone 3g, Droid	I got to play with the iPad yesterday finally. It is nice what surprised me was the speed. But after a hour of playing with it I was not overwhelmed by it as I hoped. The only thing that appealed to me was the iBooks app and the Kindle app which of course will keep me busy with it if I ever got one, but as fast as the browser was many of the sites I go to are not made for iPad (but like I said before I wouldn't use it for browsing). Though Mobile Read looked great. The reason that really got me thinking not getting it is that I felt like I am just holding my iPhone that received a Super Mario Mushroom and got bigger. It is really slick it is. Everything is fast but not something I can see myself personally using all the time. Though Magazines from Zinio looked great, Winnie The Pooh looked really good in iBooks (only lag was loading the pictures from the book; page turning was swift!). Maybe if I had the chance to play some games, maybe I would of had a different view, but this was under the companies account so I couldn't go around downloading N.O.V.A. lol. Honestly if this was cheaper, I get it as an e-reader alone, but it hasn't convinvce me to get it just yet. Maybe a killer app will it to change my mind. Last edited by rock; 05-07-2010 at 12:41 PM.

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05-07-2010, 10:37 AM	#16
pshrynk Beepbeep n beebeep, yeah! Posts: 11,726 Karma: 8255450 Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: La Crosse, Wisconsin, aka America's IceBox Device: iThingie, KmkII, I miss Zelda!	I voted love it, even though mine has yet to ship. I've played with one on three occasions and could not peel myself away from it. I'm not an Apple fAnboy, because I loathe my wife's MacBook, but I do like my Touch and agree that this is a supersized version of that.

05-07-2010, 12:35 PM	#18
radamo Addict Posts: 331 Karma: 175766 Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Long Island, NY Device: Oasis 9th Gen	I am the tech geek in my family and had no desire to get one. I like to tinker and tweak all of my tech toys. My wife wanted one, which really took me off guard. I bought her one and have to say although I can't tweak or tinker it really is a slick device. I use it quite frequently and it has replace my 505 for my evening reading sessions. Once I have a case for it, I might even consider sneaking it into my brief case for business trips. RA

05-07-2010, 05:10 PM	#20
Alexander Turcic Fully Converged Posts: 18,163 Karma: 14021202 Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Switzerland Device: Too many to count here.	Got the 16GB non-3G edition (i.e. the smallest) earlier this week. What can I say. I love it! I love the speed and the slickness of the built-in applications. Just for browsing the Web, for checking my emails and for showing my latest photos it's the best tool I can imagine. Battery life is outstanding. I wouldn't use it for serious ebook reading because for that I find E-Ink more enjoyable. But for reading the news, or comics, it's wonderful. I do miss a feature allowing me to print documents or photos. My printer supports the Bonjour protocol, and it's hooked up to the home network, so I really don't understand why Apple hasn't managed to add printing support yet. I know there are a few third party apps to remedy this, but from what I read, they aren't doing that much of a great job. Another complaint is that I had to install iTunes again. I was so happy when I got rid of that resource hog (Windows user here!) when I gave my iPod away to a friend. I don't like iTunes because it's bloated and slow, and it adds all kinds of stuff to my autostart list that I usually don't even need when I use Windows. Lastly, be careful when you buy the iPad in the US and take it back to your country somewhere else, like in my case to Switzerland. Currently, Apple does not support the iPad anywhere else, and if you try to login with your non-US iTunes account on your iPad, it will say that it's not supported. You can use iTunes on your computer to download apps to the iPad, even with your non-US account, but you'll quickly notice that some apps are missing. Most importantly for me - iBooks! Only way around it is to make a new iTunes account with a US-based address (fortunately for me, my wife is from the US). And if you don't have a credit card with a US billing address, make sure to buy a few iTunes gift cards that you can use to fill your account with some credits to make your purchases. My heart will be broken when I am going to hand the iPad over to my father, but I will remain happy knowing that Apple has just started a new trend that will surely bring out a lot of interesting devices (also from the competitors - I am eyeing Google here!).

05-07-2010, 05:26 PM	#21
radleyp Evangelist Posts: 499 Karma: 20623 Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: North Salem & NYC, NY Device: Kindle Global, iphone4, ipad	I got my 3G version last Friday. That night I lay in bed reading but after some 30-40 minutes began to feel as if I was staring into headlights. When I work on a computer, like right now, I look at the screen for a few minutes, then turn away, then turn back, but when I am reading I am staring at the screen for many minutes at a time, and then I wind up noticing the light shining right back at me. When I stopped reading and looked away, I felt as if I had been staring at the sun. The iPad makes me pine for a similar device with an e-ink screen, I will not be able to use it to read for long periods of time. It's a slick netbook replacement but for me at any rate it's a subpar book reader.

05-07-2010, 05:43 PM	#22
cmdahler Addict Posts: 292 Karma: 24688 Join Date: Aug 2009 Device: Sony PRS-505, iPad	I love the thing. I have a 64GB non-3G (I have no need for constant internet access; the GPS chip might have been nice, but not worth the extra wad of money just for that). No, it's not a full laptop replacement, but it's very useful as an internet access device and a personal gaming platform, etc. As a reader, I am very happy with the screen size and the ability to display color (Umberto Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana is just beautiful on it). IBooks is underwhelming for it's lack of full ePub standard support (embedded fonts, etc.), but I never read ePubs anyway, so I couldn't care less about that app. Goodreader is my reading platform of choice; I export all of my books from InDesign as a PDF specifically formatted for the iPad's screen, and reading those on Goodreader, I feel like I'm reading a hardback book. Very nice. The only real drawback for me as a reader is its low DPI - only 132 compared to my Sony's 160, and with smaller fonts plus the far sharper contrast which only serves to dramatically highlight this shortcoming, I really notice the difference. Reading anything less than around 11pt in a serif font styled for print really borders on uncomfortable due to jagged lines and so forth (the enclosed upper half of the lower-case "e" in Adobe Garamond Premiere Pro is almost indistinguishable at 10 point or less - really starts to look like a "c"). Sans-serif fonts designed for monitor displays look fine, so there's no problem with browsing, but I really don't want to read books in Arial or Tahoma. If Apple ever produces an iPad with something like 200 DPI or more, that would be a stunning reader at any point size in any font, but I suppose an LCD of that quality would be quite expensive. Anyway, overall I'm very happy with the device.

05-13-2010, 10:24 AM	#25
Maggie Leung Wizard Posts: 1,449 Karma: 58383 Join Date: Jul 2009 Device: Kindle, iPad	I love mine, though I'd like improvements such as lighter weight and longer battery life. I'll switch if another company comes up with a much better tablet. iPad has replaced netbooks for me while on the go. It's also largely replaced my Kindle. I used that extensively for 15 months. For more extensive computing, I still use a laptop. I quickly became spoiled by iPad's larger screen and backlighting, which I set on low. I love touch screen for all sorts of scrolling (news, blogs, shopping), as well as book reading. I used to read books on netbook before Kindle emerged and found it annoying to change pages with a mouse or on netbook keyboard, because it was easy to accidentally move the cursor off the next-page icon. That was a pain, because I prefer to read books slumped in an easy chair or in bed. Of course, those are personal preferences, and I've worked (editing) and read for leisure on computers for decades without eye problems. I'd wanted a tablet for years (mostly for e-books, e-mail and Internet), and Apple was the first to offer enough functionality to serve my needs. I don't own or plan to buy any other types of Apple computers. I hope iPads (and other tablets) spread quickly. I don't want to be an Apple demo person, and I don't want to draw attention with my stuff.