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W.Feather

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Next semester im lookinh to have more pdf text books, and my current HP Touchpad just hurts the eyes after any serious usage , so im looking at selling that to get an ipad 3. Just have a few questions.

1- is it really that much better for pdfs?

2- where is the best place to get one on sale......not really wanting to drop $500 on something that will be used for mainly textbook reading.....only seriously looking @ the 16gb unless there is a killer deal on the 32gb (nice having the extra space on my touchpad)

Thanks
 
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Apple doesn't put anything on sale ever. The only time you can get a discount is on refurbs or last generation models. Apple currently does not sell iPad 3's through refurb. Not sure when they will.

If you want a lower cost one, I would suggest used. eBay, Craigslist, Hardforums B&S section, etc. You'll find however that Apple products retain their value, and you'll probably be spending around 80% of the new cost on a used one (unless it's in poor condition. If it comes with accessories etc, expect a higher price.)

I currently have an iPad 2, so I can't comment on the 3. However, I do substantial reading on it. I currently use it as my Bible, and I've used it to read my Project Management Books (PDF), as well as books on Photography (PDF's of which I have around 30.) My most used app is probably Flipboard, which is an incredible RSS reader, that unfortunately you can't find anywhere else. I can say even at 1024x768, it's pleasant to read on. I imagine the text and fonts are even smoother on the 3. I do find I have to zoom in sometimes on small fonts on webpages, I imagine the fonts would be clear enough on the 3, provided you have the vision for it of course.

If all you do is read however, it seems like you might be better served by a Kindle Fire. If you at least did things like: browsing, checking e-mail, reading RSS feeds, reading PDF's, read eBooks, etc, it would make more economic sense to buy an iPad. If it's literally only a reader for you, there are lower cost options (or just keep your HP Touchpad.)
 
reading small print on my touchpad tires the eyes after a bit, so a fire would probably be worse....it would take over for the touchpad though, so wrb browsing on the couch, and movies when traveling....email at times as well



Edit: ro make it clear , it wont be an ereader, but for my engineering textbooks(lots of equations)
 
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If you're going to be reading a lot, then the Retina Display is worth the money. Price shouldn't even be an obstacle for you here given your intended usage.

And no, Apple products are almost never put on sale. Usually Apple will give out some mild discounts on Black Friday, but the only real ways to get Apple products below MSRP is to buy used or refurbished.
 
Sign up for a credit card with large cash back after spending x amount of money.
$300 back after $500 spent is what I got from Chase Freedom.
 
I think the lowest discount is $50 bucks for the Airs so I doubt there is an edu discount for iPads. Currently you do get $50 dollars to spend in the App store, which can be considered a discount of sorts if you plan on spending the money in the App store.
 
So best option is thru apple itself, or a CL deal.... Not sure if the app store credit would be useful, ive only spent around 10 for android apps on my phone
 
Consider a Kindle DX. It might be better for your uses. FWIW I own an iPad 3 and owned a normal Kindle (swapping for a DX)
 
Looking for color, not eink, but the dx looks like a good choice as well. Mainly since it will replace my touchpad ....the DX cant do that, especially since i wont be doing regular ebooks
 
W.Feather said:
So best option is thru apple itself, or a CL deal.... Not sure if the app store credit would be useful, ive only spent around 10 for android apps on my phone
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You don't have very many options because it's mid-cycle. Six months is too long to wait, in my opinion, but next February/March will be around the time you'll see craisglist and retail outlets blowing out their inventory (CL pricing dropping so people can unload last year's model and upgrade to the iPad 4 and retail outlets clearing inventory). After the refresh Apple stores will have refurbs which will be brand new iPad 3's from remaining inventory.

If you're on a shoestring budget one viable option would be to buy a 2nd hand ipad2 and use it for about 4-5 months, resell it on CL, then buy an iPad 3 from CL about two weeks before or after the refresh (the best pricing is linked to the amount of rumors circulating about the unreleased device so you have to really watch the news, the listings, and be savvy with your negotiating skills). Used iPads don't drop very much in value compared to other devices after they've hit the used market.
 
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price wont be a huge issue, ill be selling my touchpad and a few of the accessories and soe other stuff, will offset some of the cost . And yes, 6 months is too much - i'm looking to have it for the next semester, my thinking is, so long as the screen works fine for me - I will save money going the PDF book route + ~$500-600 initial cost of the iPad (thats what? 1, maybe 1.6 semesters of books .... ) with 4 semesters left it should pay for itself ... Ive been watching CL the last few days, nothing super (atleast legit looking....) has popped up , I may end up just getting the 16 (or maybe 32) from Apple themselves, having the extra space wont hurt for trips I figure - but will have to see what i can sell some other stuff for first.....
 
just don't switch majors because my law students pay that much per book sometimes o_O

in any case, I had the 64gb when it first launched and I never could fill it. You don't get much back in resell value for the larger capacities, too. I think 32gb is the sweet spot but I doubt you would feel space limited with the 16gb.

Do you have the 16gb or 32gb touchpad? I never ran out of space on my 32gb touchpad, either.
I wouldn't worry about it unless you find a really screaming deal on a 32gb. Also, given that you're at an edu you're probably under a wifi umbrella almost all the time? It's simple as pie to jailbreak the iPad and put a tethering app on there so opt out of the 3g models to save on cash and I doubt you'd even notice.
 
32gb for the touchpad, I have had it at/near capacity when I loaded all seasons for a show - but by no means should 16gb not be enough (i'm not exactly app heavy .... have maybe 15 apps total installed on the touchpad [mainly games], but average 16gb is more than enough...... no plans to have any mobile data, I have 0 need for it on a tablet, I just use my phone if I absolutely need to, since I am not a fan of power browsing on any touch device (only look at Hardforum for the most part)
 
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W.Feather said:
32gb for the touchpad, I have had it at/near capacity when I loaded all seasons for a show - but by no means should 16gb not be enough (i'm not exactly app heavy .... have maybe 15 apps total installed on the touchpad [mainly games], but average 16gb is more than enough...... no plans to have any mobile data, I have 0 need for it on a tablet, I just use my phone if I absolutely need to, since I am not a fan of power browsing on any touch device (only look at Hardforum for the most part)
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The only reason to get a 4G/3G to me is for GPS (which doesn't require a data plan.) If you have no interest in GPS or mobile net, then passing on the data model probably makes the most sense. I do browse often on my iPad out of convenience, but I just do that off of Wi-Fi.

If you limit all your apps to productivity, you'll never use all of the 16GB. The only time you can do that with just apps is if you download a lot of huge games (surprisingly there are big games on the app store. Some in the 4GB+ region.) The only other way of course is with media.
 
I didn't realize Apple hadn't upgraded wifi models to include GPS. Wifi location was adequate when I was using the 1st gen, however, and it can rely on your phone's GPS location services if you tether.

But that is an important consideration for some so good point that wifi models don't have a GPS chip.
 
450 said:
Consider a Kindle DX. It might be better for your uses. FWIW I own an iPad 3 and owned a normal Kindle (swapping for a DX)
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No way. I read full page PDFs with lots of equations all the time. Many have color. The iPad 3 is much better in every way.
 
I have a Kindle and iPad 3. I also owned an iPad 1. When I had the iPad 1, I preferred the Kindle for reading books. Now that I have the iPad 3 the Kindle is gathering dust. It's just a great all around device to complement a desktop PC.

The Kindle is a good reader (not so much for PDFs) but I went cheap and got the wifi only version. Wifi drains the battery quick but with it off the pages don't sync across my devices. I will occasionally read at lunch on my iPhone. If I had a 3G Kindle, I might still be using it for books.
 
Already use my G.Nexus for reading books, perfect size for that IMO, and I am looking to get it before the semester starts in ~2 weeks.

edit: answer is probably no - but Can the GPS thru my android (and no I wont give it up, had an iPhone and hated it .... ) be passed through (with jailbreak of course, that is the first thing that will happen)
 
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Check out your school computer store. I work for a university and we are offering the 16GB iPad 3 for $475 and it includes a $50 iTunes Store gift card.
 
Already did, $500 there as well, seems about the best I can find
 
W.Feather said:
Already did, $500 there as well, seems about the best I can find
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Comes with the gift card too, right? The $50 promo is only available through academic sales so it's worth going through a school store if you can. With the $50 cost offset through the academic bonus card, it's probably the best deal you're going to find. I rarely see iPad 3s on CL for less than $450.
 
Yes, both school store site and thiers thru apple are 500

edit: Question - Can I order online through Apple EDU stuff, and pick it up at a regular APple store? I live ~30 miles from campus, and there are atleast 2 Apple stores within 10 from me, it looked like it would let me do an instore pickup - but I want to know for sure -- with keeping that $50 gift card.
 
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W.Feather said:
Yes, both school store site and thiers thru apple are 500

edit: Question - Can I order online through Apple EDU stuff, and pick it up at a regular APple store? I live ~30 miles from campus, and there are atleast 2 Apple stores within 10 from me, it looked like it would let me do an instore pickup - but I want to know for sure -- with keeping that $50 gift card.
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Yes. The edu section is just a section of Apple's site. At least for my university when I browse to the Apple section via the bookstore it just redirects me to Apple's edu site.

It doesn't matter though because you can just walk into any Apple store and say you'd like to buy an iPad and that you're a student. I doubt they'll ask for proof and if they do just show them your school ID card. They didn't ask for my gf's when she bought her AppleCare the other day.

In response to your other question about the GPS: when you locate yourself via your phone the iPad will locate itself via the wifi connection. It has assisted GPS it's not like you need the iPad to see or literally use the phone's GPS in order to locate itself.

Also, when I used my 1st gen on the beach or in the mountains to check star maps it was able to locate itself fairly well. I didn't have it tethered to anything and there was no wifi signal but I don't really know the ins and outs of how aGPS functions. All I can tell you is I never ran into issues unless I tried to use it in a car for navigation without some sort of device to feed it data. But that was only because I was testing its capabilities and in actual use I always had something feeding it data (since it was wifi only) and trying to use it as a local device with the maps cached on it seemed like a poor substitute for an actual live data feed on my phone or tethered.
 
Just walking into the store will get me the credit as well then.?
 
Yes, you can make academic purchases in an Apple retail store provided you're eligible to do so.

The $50 dollar iTunes gift card is offered from Apple not the school so it doesn't matter whether you go to your bookstore or an Apple store.
 
K, ill probably run by shortly, at best buy with some use the display was tons better on pdfs than my touchpad
 
One major annoyance is the location of "back" ... is there anyway with jailbreak to have a soft key similar to where it is in Android 4.* ? Did some googling not much, just being able to move the softkey menue that is available in iOS would be fine ... it just coming up in the center of the screen is just not a very good spot for it IMO.
 
I haven't used an iDevice in a few years but there used to be something that focused the soft screen menu under your finger. You can try googling that phrase or things like it and should be able to find it. That's the kind of tweak that would be in cydia so you can also look in there.

There are also cydia apps that will enable swiping left/right functionality for Safari and perhaps other apps (if it's not already built-in to the OS by now)
 
Microcenter has the 16GB model for $460 atm iirc.

And as others have said, the retina display as amazing for textbooks. I didn't touch my physical textbooks once after I got the iPad 3. Made studying a lot easier IMO
 
I get on a plane in ... ~3 hours or 4 hours .... any suggested games I should look at ? i figure I may end up using the card for myself anyhow ... or is it best off to just sell the card ($50)
 
I can still dl them on vacation, slept the whole flight anyhow.....ill browse your links, thanks
 
The iPad 3 would probably be a solid pickup for you, but the price is not something you can balk at.
 
ZrRock said:
The iPad 3 would probably be a solid pickup for you, but the price is not something you can balk at.
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realistically speaking... ios is so well optimized for the hardware that ive seen little to no real difference running apps and productivity going from my ipad 3 to ipad 2....

heck i suggest the 2 over the 3 to most of my friends cuz of the price / productivity.
can get a mint/new ipad 2 for 200 bucks on craigslist easy.
 
IF you going to be doing a lot of reading, there is a noticable difference in the 3's display, I own a 1g and a 3g and while the 1g isn't *bad* I can notice a difference in the 3g.

As for space, my 1g is 64gb (honestly previous-gen your gonna be paying very little to upgrade to 64gb because nobody really wants them) and I've never filled it up --- in part because I use streaming for movies (Air Video is your Best-est-est-est friend for this!) and dropbox and skydrive for large documents.

Also, the app-store card can be used in regular iTunes to purchase music and movies, so if you get your media that way it's worth it to keep it. If your media comes through other sources (NetFlix, DVD Rips, Youtube, etc) then you may be better off selling it. I've had an idevice of one kind or another for around 5 years and I'd spent around $10 total (discounting cydia where I've spent prolly $20 for multi-dollar apps like ibluever) Most apps aren't over $3, so it's not a need for a lot of us to keep the cards (on the other paw if you also have an imac/macbook, then the cards are invaluable in the OSX App Store x_x)
 
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