iPad - Choice of when to buy

[andy317]

Hi all,

I have a choice and cannot make up my mind and was wondering what you would do personally.

First off before anyone says "just buy and don't wait as you could end up waiting forever" I understand technology progresses etc.

I have some friends coming over from the US and would be willing to bring me back a new iPad at Christmas which would save me around £100 but I am don't know whether it would be worth waiting for the new iPad when it gets released as we all tend to have an idea when Apple products get released due to product cycles.

Now for my question! Would you buy the current iPad for £100 less or wait for the new iPad and pay the full price, which if it stays as it is, £499.

Thanks
Andy

 

[eawmp1]

What is the price of enjoyment? Buy it now with the savings. Use it and enjoy. When a new one comes out, if you must upgrade, sell it and buy the new one. Hopefully the £100 savings - depreciation cost is < enjoyment value.

 

[r0k]

I just bought an iPhone 4. This meant switching from Verizon to At&t. I had 0 dropped calls in 10 years on Verizon but 3 dropped calls in one month on At&t. Should I have waited for a Verizon iPhone? No.

In your case, the case is more severe. If you buy now, you will undoubtedly kick yourself in March when a model with a camera comes out. If you are sure you don't care about a camera and can shut your eyes and ignore the new thing that comes out in March 2011, they why wait? You could be enoying an iPad now versus thinking about it. There is a reason iPad is the most successful product launch in the history of electronics. It just makes sense. If you know how you would use it and are sure it fits your needs in its present form and you can avoid waiting then by all means get one now. You can always sell it and buy the new one if you just can't stand being without the new feature(s).

 

[PhelpsiPhan]

i really think ipads will be like iphones and ipods, being updated on a yearly basis, so that means April is the next update

Buy now and enjoy it, i did and i love it!

 

[HuggyLowDown]

I'm going to buy an iPad very soon. What I'm going to do is buy a 32gb iPad now and then sell it in April, or whenever the next generation one comes out and then buy that one. Simple.

 

[SidBala]

Just never buy it. I bought it about 2 months ago - its sitting on my desk barely used.

However, YMMV.

 

[Mr Kram]

why don't you read/participate in the 30 other threads asking the same question?

 

[andy317]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Because I like annoying people like you who make comments that are not helpful to my own question when you could just not reply and save some time. This is my question and is relevant only to me, other peoples needs may be different, have you ever thought of that before you post.

 

[r0k]

@andy317: You know what is just about as frustrating as rude comments? It's taking the time to put together a thoughtful post and having the OP come back and reply to flames and ignore all the well thought out advice. Did anything anyone said in this thread help with your decision? By focusing on the positive and choosing to overlook the negative, MacRumors can be a much friendlier, enjoyable and productive place.

 

[andy317]

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I do understand and just had a very bad morning!! :-( I know I may have jumped the gun in replying but I have taken other comments into consideration.

I suppose I have to decide between need and want since I already have an iPhone 4 and an iMac. I guess I don't want to buy it only to have it sat about doing nothing. I picked up £1800 recently and it's burning a hole in my pocket.

 

[r0k]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

I do understand and just had a very bad morning!! :-( I know I may have jumped the gun in replying but I have taken other comments into consideration.

I suppose I have to decide between need and want since I already have an iPhone 4 and an iMac. I guess I don't want to buy it only to have it sat about doing nothing. I picked up £1800 recently and it's burning a hole in my pocket.

I have both an iPhone 4 and an iPad. With my iPhone 4 in my pocket, I reach over and grab my iPad to browse the web. Even with the older OS and without the retina display pixel pitch iPad is that much better. It's the form factor and ease of use that you would be paying for. Not that you absolutely couldn't do without it.

I find I use the iPad mostly at home when I'm sitting on the couch. I also carry it to meetings instead of my Macbook or netbook.

It's almost always better to keep money than spend it. I suggest you invest the bulk of the £1800 so you'll have it when the iMac needs replacing someday and only get the iPad if you want to take a large screen device with you from time to time.

I used my iPad for hours a day when I first got it. Since getting my iPhone 4, I use it less but I still prefer it whenever I'm doing something that is better done on a larger screen such as filling out forms to buy stuff online or writing short documents. There is another important difference if you use iPhoto, the iPad will show your faces and places from iPhoto but iPhone 4 will not. For me, one important use of the iPad was a "couch device". I find my iPhone 4 has taken over that role, mostly because I don't want to trudge upstairs to get my iPad when the iPhone 4 is "almost as good". But make no mistake, I would not want to give up my iPad and I still use it quite often. I could justify it because I would not want to be taking notes in a meeting or in class with an iPhone. Not gonna happen. iPad on the other hand is not as good as a netbook keyboard for rapid typing but I forgive the input limitation to get small size and still enjoy a large screen.

hope this helps...

 

[Bernard SG]

As far as I'm concerned, I'm sure I'll buy an iPad, however I'm waiting for the next hardware upgrade, hoping it will have a front-facing camera and Facetime. If it doesn't I'll buy anyway

 

[r0k]

Now that the 11.6 inch MBA is out, I'd have to take a serious look at it to see if it would make a better "road machine" than my iPad. I have a bt keyboard that I can use with my iPad, but if I were looking for a "smaller lighter" machine with a keyboard, the new smaller mba would fit the bill. BTW, shhhh, don't tell Steve Jobs but the new MBA is a very nice netbook. Shhhhhh.... Keep it quiet! Shhhhh... Well that's not entirely true. The new MBA has the netbook form factor but still offers a real CPU and OS.

Could the new MBA submarine some iPad sales? I think so. People like me who would really rather have a full OS might be willing to put up with the awkward form factor but still enjoy a size that is almost as small as iPad when on the road. iPad is 1.5 pounds and the new smaller MBA is 2.5 pounds. Definitely worth a look. The next time somebody comes in these forums asking for a road machine that can do "real work", I'll suggest either an iPad with iTAP VNC to a real Mac or the new smaller MBA. I know that even if I do decide to get the new MBA, I will be keeping my iPad. I just like it.