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16gb, 32gb or 64gb?

Robin4

Robin4

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 6, 2010
355
26
RTD-NC
I'm having trouble deciding how much memory I will need.

Since the iPad will be my travel companion I plan to have at least 50 books, 300 songs, 1,000 pictures, 20 films, 10 games, 20 applications, couple of newspaper subscriptions.

I am not sure if the iPad will support HD films, will that eat up my memory, does 3G also use up memory?

I was leaning towards the 32gb model but I am not sure if it is too much or not enough. How is everyone else deciding how much memory they need?
 
iTunes bought movies (at least the ones I have) weight in at around 1.2GB. So 20 of them is 24GB straight away. 300 songs will be about 1.5GB dependent on quality, lets say the apps (excluding big apps like sat nav) is 1GB, 1000 photos potentially another 10GB and we haven't even got to books. If that's what you really want on there 32GB isn't going to cut it.

3G doesn't take up any of the storage (other than driver files I'm guessing). HD video takes up a hell of a lot more space. I'm not sure if the iPad will actually play the HD version of my iTunes bought TV shows, or the SD version - that I would like to know....
 
Thanks for your advice. I guess I'll cut down those movies to a bare minimum. I can always carry some extra SD cards for the pictures. It is clear that I will need 64gb if I want to enjoy my iPad. That was easy, whew!
 
The sad thing is how much of a premium Apple charges to go to 64 gig. No way it costs them even close to $200 more.
 
richpjr said:
The sad thing is how much of a premium Apple charges to go to 64 gig. No way it costs them even close to $200 more.
Click to expand...

External hard drive with bluetooth capability is probably the way to go...64GB really isn't that much either, when you start counting films!
 
I'm going to go with 32GB 3G myself, and even I feel that is a little overkill. But I don't want to run out of space. 32GB should be plenty for me.
 
blue2noise said:
Do we even know that this would be supported?
Click to expand...

It seems to me to be a little incongruous to have this feature. The iPad is a mobile device and hard drives, even Bluetooth ones, are bulky. I would like to see the ability to sync over wifi (I'd like this for my iPhone too), and it's already pretty well established that there will be file sharing capabilities, which is a must for apps like iWork.

But this is where the "big iPod Touch" comparison comes in. It'll sync media from your iTunes library and let you buy it from the various stores, but staying connected to an HDD via Bluetooth would kill the battery.
 
If your thinking about having movies when you travel at locations, such as a hotel, with wifi. Their are options to stream your media to you, such as Orb. I'm sure their are others but Orb has worked for me so haven't really looked at what else has come out.

Orb works ok over 3g, don't think I would watch a movie, it does stutter some. The wifi experience has been great though, never know it was streaming.

Just some options for someone that doesn't want to pay $200 bucks for the additional memory.
 
bossxii said:
If your thinking about having movies when you travel at locations, such as a hotel, with wifi. Their are options to stream your media to you, such as Orb. I'm sure their are others but Orb has worked for me so haven't really looked at what else has come out.

Orb works ok over 3g, don't think I would watch a movie, it does stutter some. The wifi experience has been great though, never know it was streaming.

Just some options for someone that doesn't want to pay $200 bucks for the additional memory.
Click to expand...

I didn't think about that. Since I usually travel for 2-3 months, I'd like to have a good familiar movie that reminds me of home. I suppose Netflix's instant play could also work.
 
16, 32, or 64gb? This is another area where Apple failed to get it right. While those capacities are fine for an iPod, the larger iPad with content creation tools (iWork to start) will soon bump into the 64gb limit. Anyone buying a smaller one will just get there quicker.

Every other netbook or tablet out there has the capability for increasing internal RAM and storage. For example: I replaced my Archos 60gb hard drive with a 128gb SSD. The 60gb Hard drive was moved to my ASUS EEE 901 to increase it's original 20gb to 64gb (the 4gb difference is a seperate 4gb SSD with the OS on it in the 901).

Every other PC also has the capability of using a USB hub to connect printers and mice and 5 or 6 USB hard drives to, if you want or need. Yes, the iPad has an add-on USB port, but you can't use it if you're using the keyboard dock. Hopefully the keyboard dock includes it's own USB ports.

Apple know this, of course. They'll be happy to sell you the next larger 128gb model they come out with next year. ;)
 
If I were going to purchase an iPad, I would go for a 64GB.

Allows for the future growth and sometimes higher resale value compared to the smaller models.
 
Sounds like you will want the 64gb. As for the HD movies, I would hold off. The iPad's screen is not big enough to really tell the difference between sd and hd content. Sure it will look nicer if you look close enough, but the sd content takes much less space.
 
Personally I think I am getting the 16 GB version of the Ipad. I doubt I would ever need that much content at any given time on the Ipad. To me the Ipad doesn't replace the computer but gives a portable media player to sync with my computer. Basically like the Ipod but with pretty much every form of media. I have no problem hooking it up to my Mac to transfer new content via Itunes when I need to.
 
Me, if I get one, it will be the 16GB model so that when Gen2 comes out I can have an excuse to get the second gen (not enough space) and give my wife the first gen. :D
 
CylonGlitch said:
Me, if I get one, it will be the 16GB model so that when Gen2 comes out I can have an excuse to get the second gen (not enough space) and give my wife the first gen. :D
Click to expand...

1appleAday said:
I'm getting a 16GB for the exact the same reason :D
Click to expand...

You guys are so evil but I would do the same if I was married. :D

I'm getting the 64GB & get Rev B if they come out with a 128GB version. I will mostly hand me down the Rev A to my nephew as a late 1st yr of college gift.
 
I'm thnking 32gb but have been leaning towards 64gb lately. Estimates:

- 7 movies: 10gb
- 1000 iPad optimized photos: 1gb
- 500 songs: 3gb (need songs with iPhone?)
- Textbooks: 1gb (?)
- Apps: 5gb (thinking iPad apps bigger)

20gb. My 32gb iPhone 3GS has a 29.3gb capacity. So 9.3gb for file expansion. Hmmm. Wonder if that's enough? Especially if I get the camera kit for full sized photo downloads.

Crap I don't know! I don't want to be stuck with too little 6 months down the road.
 
Robin4 said:
I didn't think about that. Since I usually travel for 2-3 months, I'd like to have a good familiar movie that reminds me of home. I suppose Netflix's instant play could also work.
Click to expand...

Ah and how, might I ask, do you plan on viewing netflix on the ipad? In addition to flash, the ipad doesn't support silverlight either.
 
I already sent them email.

People with netflix need to contact them and say they want to be able to view netflix on their ipad and other devices.

Enough of this ipad. Go to the content provider. They can make their content compatible.

I know Netflix has a bigger issue because their contracts with providers likely will not allow them any solution in the short term that will work, but they need to be motivated to work on a solution just not sitting around hoping some day someone else will do it for them.
 
Since you have a relatively large media library, I would suggest going for the 64GB model without 3G.
 
Depends on the external storage options

I can't choose between 16 or 64 yet. It depends on the options for external storage. If there ain't any then 64 gig is the way to go (and probably not enough) and if there will be nice external storage options (wifi, BT, or USB) than 16 is enough. 32 is not an option for me, it's not big, but not small and depending on external either.
 
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