My iPad review...

[WilliamG]

I think you mean "reaped" rather than "reeked", lol. Unless you smelled bad. 🙂

In any case, I cant believe how much I enjoy using this darn device. I'm sitting here on the sofa, typing out this reply with little to no effort. Just awesome. So relaxing.

 

[PCClone]

I have to say my excitement has waned 🙁
and I would say at the moment, I'm not going to bother

I really am a greasy bugger and my iphone is always a mess

I'm pleased that they came out in the states first 😉

Not sure I would admit to having a greasy bugger on the internet.

 

[Zedcars]

Hi,

Thanks for the review.

My excitement over this new gadget has been building for months now. I've been reading everything I can find on the iPad. I was almost dead set on buying one. However, you are partly responsible for me having doubts over such a purchase when it finally winds up here in the UK.

The problem with loading multiple tabs in Safari, and having to wait for them all to reload when switching between them, is a biggie for me. Also, watching the Safari bit of this video review (11:26 in):

http://www.viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/1300/72.266

...it seems apparent that even when scrolling up and down 1 image rich page, it constantly reloads. That's madness! It's like there's no cache big enough, or no cache at all to hold a few images and text?

I don't really care how much memory, or what the CPU is or anything about the innards - hell, it could have the mummified remains of Bill Gates for all I care - as long as it does things well. And loading up a few tabs of pages for instant recall is a pretty basic requirement as far as I'm concerned. Obviously I wouldn't expect it to carry too much of a load, but why does it struggle to keep up when that reviewer was scrolling?

I may wait a year to see what v2 has to offer. I plan to upgrade my Mac this year anyhoo (plus I'd have to to use an iPad), so it'd probably be sensible to not throw all my cash at Apple right now.

-Darren

 

[DHart]

Hi,

Thanks for the review.

My excitement over this new gadget has been building for months now. I've been reading everything I can find on the iPad. I was almost dead set on buying one. However, you are partly responsible for me having doubts over such a purchase...

The problem with loading multiple tabs in Safari, and having to wait for them all to reload when switching between them, is a biggie for me. Also, watching the Safari bit of this video review (11:26 in):

http://www.viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/1300/72.266

...it seems apparent that even when scrolling up and down 1 image rich page, it constantly reloads. That's madness! It's like there's no cache big enough, or no cache at all to hold a few images and text...

...And loading up a few tabs of pages for instant recall is a pretty basic requirement as far as I'm concerned. Obviously I wouldn't expect it to carry too much of a load, but why does it struggle to keep up when that reviewer was scrolling?

I may wait a year to see what v2 has to offer. I plan to upgrade my Mac this year anyhoo (plus I'd have to to use an iPad), so it'd probably be sensible to not throw all my cash at Apple right now.

-Darren

This web page memory issue is what I really needed to hear about with the iPad. I've been ever closer to getting one mostly for web surfing. Seeing that going back and forth from one tab to another in the Safari browser requires completely re-loading each page every time you go back and forth between tabs is distressing. Almost negates the functionality of tabs. Dang.

Having enough memory to be able to hold several media rich web tabs/pages for instant viewing is the least I'd expect from a machine I would buy mostly as a media/web consuming tool. 256mb is absurd. Make it at least 512MB. With available 1 GB... the experience would be truly phenomenal.

I was planning to buy one of these for web surfing mostly, and I prefer several live tabs going at once usually, but if web pages are hampered this way, I'm turned off to the machine with 256MB, unfortunately.

 

[ViViDboarder]

I liked your review a lot. The biggest reason for me to be looking for something iPad'esq is as a reader. With iBooks and now Zinio and even the Kindle and Barns and Nobel apps it is becoming a bit more tempting. I think I'll hold off at least to see if they improve on some of these speed issues with OS 4.0 and hopefully we see a jailbreak and then I think I'd jump. 🙂

 

[jakob600]

Dropped frames

Could the DROPPED FRAMES in Safari be solved by the software update???🙁

 

[WilliamG]

Could the DROPPED FRAMES in Safari be solved by the software update???🙁

Potentially, though it's very strange how some of the iPad functionality is running. For example, opening and closing apps results in the smoothest animations ever. But for some reason, swiping the springboard left or right isn't super smooth, i.e. swiping to the right to bring up the Search screen really is NOT very smooth.

I would imagine we'll see some updates to the iPad, but I'm not sure Safari will get any smoother. I'm quite picky, and really - Safari is a great experience. I really do like that you can click a Youtube video on a page and actually watch it in Safari, unlike on the iPhone/iPod touch where it has to load the Youtube app for it.

 

[WilliamG]

I liked your review a lot. The biggest reason for me to be looking for something iPad'esq is as a reader. With iBooks and now Zinio and even the Kindle and Barns and Nobel apps it is becoming a bit more tempting. I think I'll hold off at least to see if they improve on some of these speed issues with OS 4.0 and hopefully we see a jailbreak and then I think I'd jump. 🙂

Thank you! However, once again, I do not recommend the iPad as a electronic reader. I really hope the iPad doesn't kill the Kindle/Nook etc, because e-ink is the only way I'll read electronically. I love my Kindle. 🙁

 

[DoFoT9]

william - is it possible for you to create a video/read me on multitaskability? thats probably one of my main concerns. i would want to have a multitude of things open at the same time. music whilst browsing web, mail, pages, pdfs, MSN (or other IM clients) all at the same time. are these sorts of things possible?

 

[ViViDboarder]

Thank you! However, once again, I do not recommend the iPad as a electronic reader. I really hope the iPad doesn't kill the Kindle/Nook etc, because e-ink is the only way I'll read electronically. I love my Kindle. 🙁

Does the Kindle get magazines? To be honest I started getting more interested when I saw the Zinio iPad app. I have it on my iPhone and it's pretty good for a phone. It'd just be nice to have ONE reader for everything. Even if the screen is just average.

 

[WilliamG]

william - is it possible for you to create a video/read me on multitaskability? thats probably one of my main concerns. i would want to have a multitude of things open at the same time. music whilst browsing web, mail, pages, pdfs, MSN (or other IM clients) all at the same time. are these sorts of things possible?

Well, it's not that easy. Switching back and forth between Apple apps means they multitask just fine, for the most part, but Safari tabs will need to reload if you do anything too memory intensive. I do surf and listen to music on it and do just fine. But you may want to check it out at the store before buying. You're not going to be able, without a jailbreak, to use IM apps etc with the iPad and multitask. So you'll want to see what happens tomorrow when Apple officially announces iPhone OS 4.0. Perhaps we'll see some multitasking?

Does the Kindle get magazines? To be honest I started getting more interested when I saw the Zinio iPad app. I have it on my iPhone and it's pretty good for a phone. It'd just be nice to have ONE reader for everything. Even if the screen is just average.

Kindle does get magazines, but check Amazon.com for the listings, under the Kindle store drop-down menu. I'm not sure I'd want to read mags on the Kindle. The Kindle, to me, is 100% for reading books/novels etc.

 

[DoFoT9]

Well, it's not that easy. Switching back and forth between Apple apps means they multitask just fine, for the most part, but Safari tabs will need to reload if you do anything too memory intensive. I do surf and listen to music on it and do just fine. But you may want to check it out at the store before buying. You're not going to be able, without a jailbreak, to use IM apps etc with the iPad and multitask. So you'll want to see what happens tomorrow when Apple officially announces iPhone OS 4.0. Perhaps we'll see some multitasking?

great thanks for that! they arent out in australia yet - so i cannot possibly test it. thats why i asked for some sort of video feedback 🙂

i sure do hope that OS4.0 brings some nice additions!

thanks for your reply

 

[WilliamG]

great thanks for that! they arent out in australia yet - so i cannot possibly test it. thats why i asked for some sort of video feedback 🙂

i sure do hope that OS4.0 brings some nice additions!

thanks for your reply

Yeah I'd definitely wait for it to come out down... err... there. 🙂

You won't know till you use it, and the Apple stores have them all hooked up to wifi, so you'll know soon enough!

 

[DoFoT9]

Yeah I'd definitely wait for it to come out down... err... there. 🙂

You won't know till you use it, and the Apple stores have them all hooked up to wifi, so you'll know soon enough!

hahaha oh shutup 😛

yea ill wait i guess! and check youtube reviews. cheers

 

[cmvsm]

Note to self: Don't eat greasy cheeseburgers when using iPad