All iPads LTE vs wifi

[OTACORB]

I prefer cellular model, I often find myself in need of cellular service because free wifi often sucks! My company pays for my data plan so no personal cost to me. I can tether but have a low data plan because I do pay for my cell phone.

I can see how some could live with wifi only. I use too but not anymore.

 

[ElectronGuru]

If there was no free data available, then I would have probably gone for the wifi version because I wouldn't use the cellular data enough to justify paying for a plan or data pass.

Thinking about this specific question, I didn't mind paying for data, I minded paying every month and then loosing the data I bought and then didn't use. I have plenty enough services already, shaping my behavior. I would have taken even a prepay type deal, getting a bunch of minutes then spending months burning through them.

 

[H2K03]

Cellular version for me because of the GPS plus cellular comes in handy at work to avoid restricted Internet access.

 

[hachiman]

I didn't know air has gps. Is there a software you can download and use it offline instead of always getting map data as you go?

 

[locust76]

One of my use cases for an iPad is as a wireless hotspot when I'm travelling. I go to The States at least once a year and where my folks live there is no DSL, but oddly enough 3G, so I usually pick up a prepaid AT&T data card and set up my iPad as a hotspot so I have internet while out in the middle of nowhere.

A Wi-Fi only iPad would be useless for me while travelling, pretty much.

 

[maflynn]

Cellular version for me because of the GPS plus cellular comes in handy at work to avoid restricted Internet access.

I was thinking that would be a plus for me as well. I'll have to wait and see if and when I use the GPS but its definitely a plus.

I'm stuck in the waiting game now - the iPad has shipped but it won't arrive until the end of the week :/

 

[Soordhin]

I've had the cellular 3rd gen iPad and now ordered the LTE rMini. There are several reasons of course as usual. One reason is that i simply do not care about the higher price as it is not much if taken over the time i gonna use the device. A second one is that the rMini uses a newer generation LTE chipset than my iPhone which can only use the 1800MHz frequency range and therefore will have more frequencies available which will improve connection speeds while traveling. A tertiary reason is of course that i do not have to pay for my data volume extra as i do get three SIM cards with my phone contract and have several GB a month. Since i buy directly via apple there is no simlock and i can use prepaid cards while abroad which happens quite a lot living in europe and working as an airline pilot.

 

[TroyBoy30]

one thing you cant overcome with the wifi version. a gps chip

 

[wacky4alanis]

I went with wifi. I can always get access through my iPhone's hotspot feature. But in reality, I rarely even need that. I mostly use my iPad in places that already have wifi.

 

[Rhyalus]

As usual, everyone's needs are different.

I just moved from the iPad 4 wifi to the iPad Air with LTE. I travel a lot, and I feel completely liberated!

Email anywhere, facetime or skype anywhere....GPS in the car (co-workers used it to navigate and find places that we needed to go to)...

It is like a new tool for me with the LTE. I'll never go back.

R

 

[i0Nic]

I went the other way, from an LTE iPad mini to a wifi iPad mini with retina. When I'm at home or at work I have wifi. I catch public transport so when I leave home I just turn on personal hotspot on my iPhone, turn it off when I get to work.

I found it annoying recharging my credit on my iPad every month, as well as the added expense. So far so good with the wifi-only model. I'll see how I go over the next few months, if I find it annoying that it's not constantly connected I may go back to LTE but I have no issues thus far.

 

[DelMac]

I went the other way, from an LTE iPad mini to a wifi iPad mini with retina. When I'm at home or at work I have wifi. I catch public transport so when I leave home I just turn on personal hotspot on my iPhone, turn it off when I get to work.

I found it annoying recharging my credit on my iPad every month, as well as the added expense. So far so good with the wifi-only model. I'll see how I go over the next few months, if I find it annoying that it's not constantly connected I may go back to LTE but I have no issues thus far.

That's exactly the same as me. I got my rMini through Apple so I have till Jan. 7 to return it for an LTE version if I want but I'm not missing the cellular at all so I'm probably keeping the Wi-Fi only version. I may exchange it for a 64 GB though since I got a 32 GB version that's down to 5.5 GB already. The extra expense is better suited for buying more memory than getting LTE for me.

 

[ppone]

After reading this thread here are my thoughts:

If you have a iPhone, do you really need to tether your laptop using your iPad. It is kinda of redundant. The only case it would be practical, is if your constantly on the phone and you have Verizon or Sprint; if that is the case than a cellular version makes sense. You need to be the person that is constantly on the phone while doing work on their laptop tethered to the iPad at a coffee shop, hotel or remote location.

If your using your iPad (your iPad is your laptop) excusively for remote work and can't lose internet connectivity for 1 minute (can't be bothered to tether to your iPhone), than a cellular makes sense. If your on the road allot, the redundancy of iPhone and iPad with cellular would make sense. If your iPhone dies, switch to the iPad with cellular, or vice versa.

Has for GPS. Do you really need GPS for the iPad? In a majority of cases, the iPad will be able to find your location through wifi. It works accurately most of the time. Would you really need to use your iPad for navigation when your have your iPhone.

If you have a basic phone, then the iPad with cellular makes sense. A iPhone and iPad with cellular is a bit of overkill for the majority of people. There are people who do need both (they are usually traveling at least 50% of the time or work at some outdoor remote location), but most people don't travel as much.

So please save yourself some money and don't optimize for situations that you don't normally encounter. If you truly need the cellular version, it will hit you in the face, and you'll will see no other option.

Thanks


"Premature optimization is the root of all evil" ~ Knuth

 

[unipad]

If you can drive manual car, no problem for automatic. Simply apply to iPad models decision as well.

 

[MrXiro]

I decided to go with the LTE iPad this time. I only do the 1gb over three months plan. It's only for those situations where I really need the data if I'm out and wifi isn't available. It can also help us as a GPS device should we need that. It was an extra $130 bucks but I felt is was a worthwhile investment for me.

YMMV

Why didn't you just get the Tmobile free 200mb plan then? You won't have to spend anything extra.

 

[DelMac]

After reading this thread here are my thoughts:

If you have a iPhone, do you really need to tether your laptop using your iPad. It is kinda of redundant. The only case it would be practical, is if your constantly on the phone and you have Verizon or Sprint; if that is the case than a cellular version makes sense. You need to be the person that is constantly on the phone while doing work on their laptop tethered to the iPad at a coffee shop, hotel or remote location.

If your using your iPad (your iPad is your laptop) excusively for remote work and can't lose internet connectivity for 1 minute (can't be bothered to tether to your iPhone), than a cellular makes sense. If your on the road allot, the redundancy of iPhone and iPad with cellular would make sense. If your iPhone dies, switch to the iPad with cellular, or vice versa.

Has for GPS. Do you really need GPS for the iPad? In a majority of cases, the iPad will be able to find your location through wifi. It works accurately most of the time. Would you really need to use your iPad for navigation when your have your iPhone.

If you have a basic phone, then the iPad with cellular makes sense. A iPhone and iPad with cellular is a bit of overkill for the majority of people. There are people who do need both (they are usually traveling at least 50% of the time or work at some outdoor remote location), but most people don't travel as much.

So please save yourself some money and don't optimize for situations that you don't normally encounter. If you truly need the cellular version, it will hit you in the face, and you'll will see no other option.

Thanks


"Premature optimization is the root of all evil" ~ Knuth

Totally agree especially with spending on situations you don't normally encounter. As far as GPS goes on a Mini, I'd still rather use the iPhone for navi while driving since i listen to directions and for walking directions as well since the iPhone is more portable to walk around with. And also if I'm a passenger in a car my Mini is for browsing and the iPhone for GPS not the other way around.

 

[derbyshire2013]

I know there's extra for the cellular models but I am going to get one of those after Christmas.

Where I work in England my current cell provider only has GPRS for mobile data so I'm not in a position to tether from my iPhone 5s.

So the idea is to find out who has reasonable 3G coverage and go from there...

 

[Yptcn]

I've had the cellular 3rd gen iPad and now ordered the LTE rMini. There are several reasons of course as usual. One reason is that i simply do not care about the higher price as it is not much if taken over the time i gonna use the device. A second one is that the rMini uses a newer generation LTE chipset than my iPhone which can only use the 1800MHz frequency range and therefore will have more frequencies available which will improve connection speeds while traveling. A tertiary reason is of course that i do not have to pay for my data volume extra as i do get three SIM cards with my phone contract and have several GB a month. Since i buy directly via apple there is no simlock and i can use prepaid cards while abroad which happens quite a lot living in europe and working as an airline pilot.

Besides being a pilot, which I am not ,my reasons are the same as yours. I switched to the rMini LTE version because now I can get a sim card anywhere in the world that will work with all frequencies . I also get an extra sim card free from my carrier to share my plan .

 

[1rottenapple]

I like having LTE usually Verizon's $20 plan. It kinda makes the iPad useless when you don't have internet. I'm gonna try tmobile 200mb free plan to see if it works for me. I use inovo app to reduce the images size so I use less data, and limit the apps that use cellular. I hope that doing this will help me go under 200mb a month. If not I'm ok with paying the $20 the added convenience.

 

[deeddawg]

I like having LTE usually Verizon's $20 plan.

Also check out AT&T's $25 1GB/3month plan. If you use under 800MB/month it may be a better deal than the Verizon 1GB/30day plan. (800MB/mo is the cost breakeven between the two)

Two caveats though: it doesn't autorenew (which can be good), and no tethering.

 

[Ieo]

I'm in a pretty rural area, and there has only been one time in two years when I wished I had gone with the cellular model over the wifi only model (That was at my grandparent's house up in the mountains in Oregon). Any other time, I've always had wifi available or I've been able to use my iPhone as a hotspot.

I will concede though that I'm not a drag-my-iPad-around-town type of guy...if it doesn't fit in my pants pocket It's staying home. If I'm going to a coffee shop for a study group or something, yes. Otherwise it's strictly used at home, on campus, or when I'm charting at the hospital. All of which have wifi.

 

[scaredpoet]

I went the opposite direction of the OP: I used to get the WiFi only models, but I went with the cellular model this time around with the Air.

I still have personal hotspot on my iPhone and will still tether with it for most off-Wifi usage. But I've had a few close calls where I've misplaced my iPhone for a bit, and had no means of communication AT ALL while traveling, until I found it again. Having cellular on another device means I have a backup option should I need it.

And I can use data from an alternate carrier if my AT&T service isn't great in a particular area.

Also, there's the free 200MB per month from T-Mobile. If it's offered, why not?

 

[Rhyalus]

After reading this thread here are my thoughts:

If you have a iPhone, do you really need to tether your laptop using your iPad. It is kinda of redundant. The only case it would be practical, is if your constantly on the phone and you have Verizon or Sprint; if that is the case than a cellular version makes sense. You need to be the person that is constantly on the phone while doing work on their laptop tethered to the iPad at a coffee shop, hotel or remote location.

If your using your iPad (your iPad is your laptop) excusively for remote work and can't lose internet connectivity for 1 minute (can't be bothered to tether to your iPhone), than a cellular makes sense. If your on the road allot, the redundancy of iPhone and iPad with cellular would make sense. If your iPhone dies, switch to the iPad with cellular, or vice versa.

Has for GPS. Do you really need GPS for the iPad? In a majority of cases, the iPad will be able to find your location through wifi. It works accurately most of the time. Would you really need to use your iPad for navigation when your have your iPhone.

If you have a basic phone, then the iPad with cellular makes sense. A iPhone and iPad with cellular is a bit of overkill for the majority of people. There are people who do need both (they are usually traveling at least 50% of the time or work at some outdoor remote location), but most people don't travel as much.

So please save yourself some money and don't optimize for situations that you don't normally encounter. If you truly need the cellular version, it will hit you in the face, and you'll will see no other option.

Thanks


"Premature optimization is the root of all evil" ~ Knuth

I think your trying to rationalize something using your own value structure and availability of funds.

Putting %travel times and other metrics to this is silly.

To me, it is very valuable to have an ipad that is connected anywhere, without having to worry about tethering.

This is not true for everyone. Each person has to decide what the cost vs benefit analysis is for them.

R

 

[dannynjoni]

iPad w/no connection = FAIL

Hate it when I don't have a connection with my iPad period. <---Yeah that's two periods.

And is it just me or is LTE faster than almost ANY wi-fi??

Also the comments about GPS.

 

[shenan1982]

Good on you for recognizing not everyone's preferences/needs are the same. Too many immature little pr!cks on MR these days who cannot get their heads around the concept.

I find cellular to be useful; I use wifi at work, home, and hotels when on the road. It's handy not to screw around with wifi at client sites or every last place I might have lunch or something.

Do I pay a premium for this convenience? Sure, but i can afford it and and it's worth it to me.

Kudos for a spot-on response. Clearly those who say "Wifi is everywhere" don't travel much. Try landing in Amsterdam or London and accessing WiFi... you'll have to shell out $15 for an hour. Everywhere ehh? And you're right, tethering isn't ideal, and takes time. And yep, it's awkward to always be asking for someone's wifi password when you go somewhere new, or a coffee shop, etc. Easier to just add it to my MobileShare for $10 a month and not have to worry about not having data access.