I love multitouch. Love it on laptops, my iPhones, love my magic mouse, and now I'm pretty fond of my iPad. I've been thinking for years that multitouch is the future of computer UI. I closely followed the myriad of predictions and anticipatory banter before the iPad's announcement, watched the keynote, obsessed in these very forums since January, pre-ordered and waited impatiently for a friend to bring my iPad over to my most-of-the-year home in India.
I've read hundreds of reviews/user impressions. I walked my parents through setting theirs up in a Skype video chat, amused by their 'typical' reactions ('wow it's heavy... no.. solid' then first time the screen went black 'holy smokes it's so dirty... why didn't they send a cleaning cloth?'). I had 35 iPad/Universal apps ready to install when I finally got my iPad (w/ 2 cases and a screen protector) in my hands 7 hours ago.
It almost had to be a disappointment, I'd built it up so much in my mind. It's astonishingly well built, and yes, 1.5lbs is heavier than I thought.... and I read big Bibles and 600 page reference hard back books, so I thought everyone else was being wimpy and it'd be a non-issue for me. I was wrong. It's not a huge issue or a deal-breaker, but the 'my arms get tired' line resonates, as where reading it in these forums before I always rolled my eyes.
It's also smaller than I expected. When the neoprene case was handed to me, it really took me by surprise, even though I've stretched out a measuring tape 9.7" probably 5-6 times in my months of obsession. So in terms of physical appearance, it's beautiful, small, and weighty.
The screen is the best I've ever used, and I've got $3,000+ of displays hooked up to my desktop right now. Viewing angle, contrast, brightness (only paused to play with the brightness mid-way through this sentence) is impressive, seems it's been on 50% most of the day/evening. The size and aspect ratio don't disappoint, although I haven't tried a movie on it (I watch a 96" HD projected screen most times for movies, so that's not high on the list of why I got the iPad).
Battery life is tremendously impressive... assuming it continues to dissipate at the same rate. It's gone from 76% to 48% in 7 hours of off-on usage. Surprisingly, doesn't charge on the Mac Pro 1,1 front USB port, so I'll have to use the wall charger... at least I won't have to use it very often.
So far my two show-off apps are 'Photos' and 'Maps'. I'm surprised I haven't read more praise for the photo capabilities of the iPad, because to me, it's one of it's strongest features. I happen to have super-cute kids, so that doesn't hurt, and since my family is inter-racial (I'm white, my wife's Indian) naturally Indians are very eager to see what my family is like, so that's been terrific. Pinching to peek at Album stacks is just awesome. GPSs aren't common here, so Maps is also impressive to people (myself included).
I don't have my 3G fully functional yet (got a 3G SIM which I'm struggling to get activated, should resolve it by Monday), but I've had no wifi issues, although the two places I've used it both had Airport Extreme-powered wifi so it's not surprisingly that 'it just works'.
I'm writing this review on my desktop, and I think that, unlike a vast majority, my 'Mac time' won't diminish to near-nothing, because, while very strong, the browsing experience isn't so-magical as to be preferable to my portrait 1080p monitor (dedicated for Safari, plus others). It's in no way deficient, I'm just spoiled. For me, Mac usage is likely to decline slightly, but iPhone usage will plummet.
Of the 4 'HD' variants of games I already played a great deal on iPhone, 1 was almost unplayable difficult on iPad (Rope 'n' Fly 2 HD) and the other three (Angry Birds HD, Fieldrunners HD, and Plants Vs Zombies HD) look marginally better, but the gameplay is unchanged. Having played each of these games dozens of hours each, it's a bit of a let down. Fieldrunners is supposed to have some iPad-specific levels (portrait mode, seems like) so this should improve somewhat. Gaming is good.
eBook reading (tested Kindle app) is fine. The dedicated apps are fairly wonderful (Alice for iPad and Toy Story) and normal eBooks are good-enough. My Kindle 2 is preferable for raw text consumption - but it's subjective and I'll use the iPad for eBooks here and there.
A small side note, as though I haven't rambled enough, I hadn't realized the 3G's black plastic bit extends from the back to the top and is visible from the front. Quite a minor point but it's stands out more than I expected.
I thought we'd have to hurry and get a 2nd iPad soon, to satisfy my family's need, but now I think this one will be very well-used and I'll try to hold out until the next model comes, as video conferencing is something I use every single day and we'll be glad to have it (here's hoping for a camera!).
I can't quite bring myself to exclaim my 'love' for the iPad yet, but it is a really fantastic gadget, really excels in giving you 20 ways to kill time, and is an amazingly mature product giving it's a brand new product category and still on the original firmware.
All in all, Apple's innovation and boldness is astounding. Geeks and Grandparents love it alike. It'll sell like crazy, and the 'me too' late coming android tablets really have their work cut out for them. I theorize the lack of announcements (not counting 4.5" Dell) is because no one can come close to engineering a similar product experience. It did take 2 years to produce a user experience similar to the iPhone (it can be argued that Froyo on Android out-classes the present iPhone/iPhone OS, but only for another couple months), the iPad is going to bring Apple into more households than ever before. It's safe, friendly and beautiful inside this wall garden. Do I feel confined by a lack of choice? No, I feel inundated by app choices, too many ways to enjoy the iPad.
I've read hundreds of reviews/user impressions. I walked my parents through setting theirs up in a Skype video chat, amused by their 'typical' reactions ('wow it's heavy... no.. solid' then first time the screen went black 'holy smokes it's so dirty... why didn't they send a cleaning cloth?'). I had 35 iPad/Universal apps ready to install when I finally got my iPad (w/ 2 cases and a screen protector) in my hands 7 hours ago.
It almost had to be a disappointment, I'd built it up so much in my mind. It's astonishingly well built, and yes, 1.5lbs is heavier than I thought.... and I read big Bibles and 600 page reference hard back books, so I thought everyone else was being wimpy and it'd be a non-issue for me. I was wrong. It's not a huge issue or a deal-breaker, but the 'my arms get tired' line resonates, as where reading it in these forums before I always rolled my eyes.
It's also smaller than I expected. When the neoprene case was handed to me, it really took me by surprise, even though I've stretched out a measuring tape 9.7" probably 5-6 times in my months of obsession. So in terms of physical appearance, it's beautiful, small, and weighty.
The screen is the best I've ever used, and I've got $3,000+ of displays hooked up to my desktop right now. Viewing angle, contrast, brightness (only paused to play with the brightness mid-way through this sentence) is impressive, seems it's been on 50% most of the day/evening. The size and aspect ratio don't disappoint, although I haven't tried a movie on it (I watch a 96" HD projected screen most times for movies, so that's not high on the list of why I got the iPad).
Battery life is tremendously impressive... assuming it continues to dissipate at the same rate. It's gone from 76% to 48% in 7 hours of off-on usage. Surprisingly, doesn't charge on the Mac Pro 1,1 front USB port, so I'll have to use the wall charger... at least I won't have to use it very often.
So far my two show-off apps are 'Photos' and 'Maps'. I'm surprised I haven't read more praise for the photo capabilities of the iPad, because to me, it's one of it's strongest features. I happen to have super-cute kids, so that doesn't hurt, and since my family is inter-racial (I'm white, my wife's Indian) naturally Indians are very eager to see what my family is like, so that's been terrific. Pinching to peek at Album stacks is just awesome. GPSs aren't common here, so Maps is also impressive to people (myself included).
I don't have my 3G fully functional yet (got a 3G SIM which I'm struggling to get activated, should resolve it by Monday), but I've had no wifi issues, although the two places I've used it both had Airport Extreme-powered wifi so it's not surprisingly that 'it just works'.
I'm writing this review on my desktop, and I think that, unlike a vast majority, my 'Mac time' won't diminish to near-nothing, because, while very strong, the browsing experience isn't so-magical as to be preferable to my portrait 1080p monitor (dedicated for Safari, plus others). It's in no way deficient, I'm just spoiled. For me, Mac usage is likely to decline slightly, but iPhone usage will plummet.
Of the 4 'HD' variants of games I already played a great deal on iPhone, 1 was almost unplayable difficult on iPad (Rope 'n' Fly 2 HD) and the other three (Angry Birds HD, Fieldrunners HD, and Plants Vs Zombies HD) look marginally better, but the gameplay is unchanged. Having played each of these games dozens of hours each, it's a bit of a let down. Fieldrunners is supposed to have some iPad-specific levels (portrait mode, seems like) so this should improve somewhat. Gaming is good.
eBook reading (tested Kindle app) is fine. The dedicated apps are fairly wonderful (Alice for iPad and Toy Story) and normal eBooks are good-enough. My Kindle 2 is preferable for raw text consumption - but it's subjective and I'll use the iPad for eBooks here and there.
A small side note, as though I haven't rambled enough, I hadn't realized the 3G's black plastic bit extends from the back to the top and is visible from the front. Quite a minor point but it's stands out more than I expected.
I thought we'd have to hurry and get a 2nd iPad soon, to satisfy my family's need, but now I think this one will be very well-used and I'll try to hold out until the next model comes, as video conferencing is something I use every single day and we'll be glad to have it (here's hoping for a camera!).
I can't quite bring myself to exclaim my 'love' for the iPad yet, but it is a really fantastic gadget, really excels in giving you 20 ways to kill time, and is an amazingly mature product giving it's a brand new product category and still on the original firmware.
All in all, Apple's innovation and boldness is astounding. Geeks and Grandparents love it alike. It'll sell like crazy, and the 'me too' late coming android tablets really have their work cut out for them. I theorize the lack of announcements (not counting 4.5" Dell) is because no one can come close to engineering a similar product experience. It did take 2 years to produce a user experience similar to the iPhone (it can be argued that Froyo on Android out-classes the present iPhone/iPhone OS, but only for another couple months), the iPad is going to bring Apple into more households than ever before. It's safe, friendly and beautiful inside this wall garden. Do I feel confined by a lack of choice? No, I feel inundated by app choices, too many ways to enjoy the iPad.
), so I didn't expect it to be bigger or lighter and such things. Like yourself, I also couldn't help reading everything I could about it etc etc but knew that just like everyone raving about a great movie it would just build up unrealistic expectations so had to consciously try and lower my expectations. 
