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iPad Mega Review Round-Up

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For those of you that asked about iPad review coverage, here you go. How a device that can’t run more than a single app at a time, has no webcam, no widescreen, no USB, no card slots, no flash and isn’t upgradeable be declared better than a laptop is beyond me…but apparently people are saying just that. Also, I picked this round-up because it has a handy highlight chart for those of you that don't want to read all the reviews.

At least eight people got iPads from Apple pre-launch, three usual suspects plus some new faces. Their approaches are different, but the take-home remains the same: It's good. Here's the easiest way to digest all the iPad reviews at once.
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I can't understand why anyone would ever choose a mac product when you can (generally speaking) get a better product without the "i" or a MacOS label on it.

The only thing this product has going for it is the fact it has no real direct competitor. Yet.

Oh well, your money so do what you want with it.
 
Json23 said:
I can't understand why anyone would ever choose a mac product when you can (generally speaking) get a better product without the "i" or a MacOS label on it.

The only thing this product has going for it is the fact it has no real direct competitor. Yet.

Oh well, your money so do what you want with it.
Click to expand...

Technically the Netbook Convertibles like the Asus T91, Lenovo S10-3t, Gigabyte T1000 series, and much more are all more capable devices that are direct competitors.

I just picked up a Lenovo S10-3t for $435 after BCB, it will be arriving next Wednesday, seems like it needs some tweaks though that I have already lined up for after it arrives. Tweaks coming upon arrival, accelerometer turned on, 2GB Ram, Win 7 Pro Upgrade.
 
Since when is 1024 x 768 HD? Those reviewers are the biggest tools I've ever read, and I used to read PC Mag.
 
AaronP said:
Since when is 1024 x 768 HD? Those reviewers are the biggest tools I've ever read, and I used to read PC Mag.
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The competitors Gigabyte, Asus, HP, etc... should be coming with true HD screens, I.E. 1360x768. They should just be around the corner too :D
 
96redformula said:
Technically the Netbook Convertibles like the Asus T91, Lenovo S10-3t, Gigabyte T1000 series, and much more are all more capable devices that are direct competitors.

I just picked up a Lenovo S10-3t for $435 after BCB, it will be arriving next Wednesday, seems like it needs some tweaks though that I have already lined up for after it arrives. Tweaks coming upon arrival, accelerometer turned on, 2GB Ram, Win 7 Pro Upgrade.
Click to expand...

Congrats amt welcome to my world! Assuming this is your first convertible TPC of course.

The TPC is a fantastic platform on the right hardware.

Good Luck!:)
 
Why are they gushing about something that is [for lack of better terms] a complete and utter waste? It lacks a large amount of functionality, doesn't do anything new, and is more expensive that things that don't lack all of that functionality. I fkn hate Apple - Part Six.
 
The amount of Apple @$$ kissing in the media is plain outrageous. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if $$ were talking
 
This version sucks but they will add most of those features in the OP in later refreshes.
The early adopters pay for future refreshes. That how Apple operates, high profit margins.
I'll wait until Version 3.0, this can be useful in my line of work.
 
Term-X said:
I guess I will never understand.
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Actually makes sense. The iPad has a slick UI and is easy to use. So easy to use in fact that you can get a Mac Genius to help setup your email. Apparently Apple will have classes for setting up your iPad.

While it's fucking scary that you need a class to use an iPad it does show the good side of Apple. They get their customers. When HP Slates go on sale you're not going to see this kind of service.

Like many Apple products at its core its fairly standard, even primitive tech wrapped in a beautiful bow. It is attractive a slick. But there will be demand as well for less slick looking and more useful devices.

Think of the iPad as a basic low end slate device for media consumption. When used for that purpose people will love it. When you stray outside of this usage pattern you'll want another device.

So games, e-books, etc. stuff like that. Makes sense.
 
WorldExclusive said:
This version sucks but they will add most of those features in the OP in later refreshes.
The early adopters pay for future refreshes. That how Apple operates, high profit margins.
I'll wait until Version 3.0, this can be useful in my line of work.
Click to expand...

But this will be FAR from the only slate out there in short order. Expect the HP Slate in June. The iPad is getting a lot of hype now but when it goes up against Windows 7 on good hardware it will loose a little luster simply because of Windows vastly superior capabilities though it be nearly as slick.
 
Those reviewers are all assholes.

Is the processor even any good? What's its processing power? Just about any processor will be fast on a barebone computer gadget thing....
 
Json23 said:
The only thing this product has going for it is the fact it has no real direct competitor. Yet.
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Yet is the key word there. I can pretty muchguess the HP Slate will be the ipad killer.
 
The moment Apple releases a version that has a built in webcam that supports HD Skype type calls, and Hulu works (that apparently is coming) then I'll pick one up. Otherwise hell no.

If there is a HP Slate that comes out before then then so be it, I'll get that instead. Netbooks might have more funcionality but they sure as hell do not have the same usability.
 
For reasons that Steve has already mentioned, I really can't imagine why anyone with half a brain would pick one of these up.
 
Steve Jobs do all the thinking for them, so half a brain is more than enough for them.
 
Stephen Colbert loves his iPad.. that is the only review I need to know!!

0201-colbert-grammy-ipad_full_600.jpg
 
You'd love it too, if Steve Jobs gives you thousands of dollars to say that.
 
Yeah when Steven Colbert starts making our tech decisions I'd be afraid, very afraid.
 
I think I will wait to read reviews from people other than the WSJ who has a vested interest in seeing the Ipad be a hit. 3 out of the 6 reviews that rated the virtual keyboard as not that great. I might want one if I traveled a lot but calling it a laptop killer is a stretch.
 
While I agree 100% with all of you that the lack of features such as USB and flash support, no multi-tasking capabilities or the fact that its simply an Apple product you have to understand that kinda market it caters to and the type of people who admire such a product.

Anyone of us who browse these forums know full well at how limited this hardware is, but I would consider us such a small niche in terms at who would "not" buy the Ipad, I know hundreds if not thousands of people who are extremely limited in their understanding and knowledge yet they think it's the next best thing since swiss cheese.

It's extremely easy to use, any idiot can figure it out in a couple hours time.
Aesthetically, it's superb in comparison to most other products.
Most people don't fully utilize or care about flash or know what USB port is.
But most iimportantly, people want it because it's the thing to have and they have the money.

It's sorta like the saying about how PC's will always be better than consoles, yet the console user base dwarfs it because of the fact that it's a simple stand alone system, it's cheaper for the most part, and strictly speaking to the US itself, most people still don't know how to boot up a computer let alone understand the concept of updating drivers, changing their passwords every 6-12 months, scanning for virus's or malware. A console is simple, you put a cd in, boot it up and you're ready to go.

Same principle applies to the Ipad, the UI is ready for you to break down, they don't care if most web pages have rectangular boxes cuz there's no flash, hell they don't even know what flas is, the apple designers know what they're doing and exactly what market to cater to, the CASUAL people with the money to burn. As an architect major, one of the main principles in my design is to simplify my buidlings because the most beautiful designs I've seen are the ones without too much shit thrown in, and as the Ipad it's a simple design concept but executed wonderfully because of the simplicity of the design as a whole.

But basically yea, Apple users may not have half a brain, but I damn well guarantee you there's 50 million more half brain people out there than there are intelligent ones. Sad but true fellas...
 
Touch is great but compared to a pen it SUCKS for large input jobs thus device can't really replace a laptop or convertible tablet. Even Mossberg said When he needed to bang out text that he used a laptop.

Now for causal users it might be enough but after a while I would think that people would realize how much time they're wasting and just use a keyboard or perhaps step up to a TPC with an EMR pen.
 
Ski said:
It's extremely easy to use, any idiot can figure it out in a couple hours time.
Aesthetically, it's superb in comparison to most other products.
Most people don't fully utilize or care about flash or know what USB port is.
But most iimportantly, people want it because it's the thing to have and they have the money.

It's sorta like the saying about how PC's will always be better than consoles, yet the console user base dwarfs it because of the fact that it's a simple stand alone system, it's cheaper for the most part, and strictly speaking to the US itself, most people still don't know how to boot up a computer let alone understand the concept of updating drivers, changing their passwords every 6-12 months, scanning for virus's or malware. A console is simple, you put a cd in, boot it up and you're ready to go.


But basically yea, Apple users may not have half a brain, but I damn well guarantee you there's 50 million more half brain people out there than there are intelligent ones. Sad but true fellas...
Click to expand...

I agree with a lot of this but Windows is that complex on the surface. Really if Microsoft were able to package the way they should with built in AV it wouldn't be a big deal.

That said for all of its simplicity its going to confuse people when web sites don't work because of no Flash or other plug-in technology.

And there are LOT of Windows users who can use Windows just fine and an iPad being different will confuse them. this is why I think well built Windows slates have a good future ahead of them.

The iPad came out first but there's MANY more devices on the way.
 
Have any of the experts here ever, like used an existing tablet computer? I have had occasion to use two for a programming project-- an IBM Thinkpad X-series and a TabletKiosk slate computer. They were both running Windows (XP and 7 were tried), and they're obviously much more powerful and capable than the iPad (especially the Thinkpad). I also have, sitting in the closet, a first generation HP Touchsmart, about which the less said, the better.

Be honest: when was the last time you even saw a tablet computer in the real word? I'd bet upwards of 90% of them are industrial units running proprietary software.

Do you know why tablet computers have never sold well? If you'd ever used one, you would. They suck. Like, really hard. They suck because people interact with tablets in a fundamentally different way than they interact with a keyboard and mouse, and as the success of the iPhone has proven, Apple knows more about touch-based UI design than pretty much all the rest of the industry combined.

Windows 7 tablet features? Please. The schizoid dichotomy between a "mouse device" and a "touch device" (one you can click controls with. One you can do gestures with. Which applies in which situation? Well, that's kinda murky) make it almost useless. A desktop UI doesn't work well on a mobile device, and if you think otherwise, you should take a look and the market for Windows CE and Windows Phone devices.

Stop trying to hammer the iPad into your preconceived notions of what a tablet computer should do. You might find that it's actually useful. Alternatively, you can continue to sneer at the millions of people who buy them in the next few months. Anyone want to bet that within 6 months, more iPads will be sold than all previous tablet computers for the last decade?
 
I can see a desire for this device. If someone NEEDS a full OS they can get a netbook. If someone WANTS something to play around with, and even get a lot of use from the iPad is a good choice. Just a bit expensive. But I'm sure playing games like Plants Vs Zombies on it would be awesome. Also there's websites going to HTML5 to work on it, instead of using flash. It's funny how many people bitch about how they hate flash, and then people bitch that iPhone/iPads don't support flash. Well, look at it this way, the more iPad users there are, the more companies will want to migrate to HTML5.

iPad is better than netbook/tablets at what it does. The same can be said for the other. Simple as that. If you are too stupid to know what your needs/wants are, well then there's no hope for you to make your own decisions so believe whoever you want.
 
lathode said:
It's funny how many people bitch about how they hate flash, and then people bitch that iPhone/iPads don't support flash. Well, look at it this way, the more iPad users there are, the more companies will want to migrate to HTML5.

iPad is better than netbook/tablets at what it does. The same can be said for the other. Simple as that. If you are too stupid to know what your needs/wants are, well then there's no hope for you to make your own decisions so believe whoever you want.
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Couple of things. People think that HTML 5 is a drop in solution for Flash. Not at all. Much Flash content is programmatic, not just video. Flash and Silverlight have there place and as HTML 5 gains cabability so will these technologies. The Holy Grail of only one web one open technology just isn't going to happen. To be honest I don't think its I the best intrests to not have otherways to accomplish things.

As far as an iPad being better than a tablet at what it does. I'm assuming we're talking Windows tablets, perhaps that's true but what exactly is the iPad for? Media consumption? A well designed Windows slate can easily compete in that arena. In fact a Windows device can consume just ANY media. Hell I can watch Blu Ray movies on my tm2. Try that with an iPad.

Not saying that you don't have a point but its really just about software. And there's little that will work on an iPad that wouldn't work on a TPC.
 
Ski said:
Anyone of us who browse these forums know full well at how limited this hardware is, but I would consider us such a small niche in terms at who would "not" buy the Ipad, I know hundreds if not thousands of people who are extremely limited in their understanding and knowledge yet they think it's the next best thing since swiss cheese.
Click to expand...

Yes, those ppl are also what many of us call morons. They make purchases with little to no knowledge on what they are even getting.

It's extremely easy to use, any idiot can figure it out in a couple hours time.
Aesthetically, it's superb in comparison to most other products.
Most people don't fully utilize or care about flash or know what USB port is.
But most iimportantly, people want it because it's the thing to have and they have the money.
Click to expand...

What's there to figure out? It's just a bigger iPod Touch/iPhone.
Aesthetically, it's superb? Based on what? Your opinion?
For a product that's aimed to be a portable eReader and PMP, Flash is quite important. Also those with portables like tablets, netbooks, notebooks, etc would like to have a USB port for things like a mouse.
Yes, for some ppl, it's the thing to have, simply because other ppl think it's the thing to have. Moronic as that sounds.

It's sorta like the saying about how PC's will always be better than consoles, yet the console user base dwarfs it because of the fact that it's a simple stand alone system, it's cheaper for the most part, and strictly speaking to the US itself, most people still don't know how to boot up a computer let alone understand the concept of updating drivers, changing their passwords every 6-12 months, scanning for virus's or malware. A console is simple, you put a cd in, boot it up and you're ready to go.
Click to expand...

Did you just say there are more console users than PC users? Last I checked, that wasn't the case. If you're talking about games, that still isn't the case.

There's like what? 2 billion PC users in the world, compared to how many 360, PS3, Wii, PS2 users. Games? Look at WoW, those flash games on Facebook/Myspace, etc.

Same principle applies to the Ipad, the UI is ready for you to break down, they don't care if most web pages have rectangular boxes cuz there's no flash, hell they don't even know what flas is, the apple designers know what they're doing and exactly what market to cater to, the CASUAL people with the money to burn. As an architect major, one of the main principles in my design is to simplify my buidlings because the most beautiful designs I've seen are the ones without too much shit thrown in, and as the Ipad it's a simple design concept but executed wonderfully because of the simplicity of the design as a whole.
Click to expand...

Yes, it's the exact same simple design concept that the S.Koreans have already come up with and sold on the market for over a year.

http://www.myviliv.com/eng/index.asp

I live in S.Korea right now and you don't know how many of these different type of slate products I've seen sitting in taxi cabs. All of which have DMB, for viewing TV. Also the built in GPS. I've seen at least 4 different companies that have built similiar products.
 
The only advantage this Ipad seems to have over my Hp TX2Z 12.1 touchscreen laptop is that its battery lasts much longer.. I cant understand why people pay what they do for such limited use devices.
 
I have the tx2z, nice machine. But the standard battery isn't great and it runs to hot to be used a lot as a slate though there are was to mitigate the heat. If you like the tx2 you'd LOVE the tm2!

Twice the battery life of the standard tx2 battery, overall faster because of a dedicated GPU option and it runs MUCH cooler.
 
Used it to read comics and other books in tablet form for a couple hours at a time withotu issue. it gets warm but its not hot. The battery life is the real issue if it could get a more efficient battery be nice. have gotton it to go a couple hours on a flight though before just reading pdf and cbr format from a flash drive. That TM2 has no optical drive I c and smaller screen.. i dont know i dont think i would want anything smaller then 12.1 seems about right for a normal page size feel imo. I can run TF2 on the Tx2Z with its AMD 3200 IGP at medium to high settings.
 
Not that I expected anything different, but that chart absolutely reeks of piss poor rhetoric and cult-like approval. I shit you not, I became nauseous from reading the first 6 or so lines of that chart.

Bad form.
 
dajet24 said:
Used it to read comics and other books in tablet form for a couple hours at a time withotu issue. it gets warm but its not hot. The battery life is the real issue if it could get a more efficient battery be nice. have gotton it to go a couple hours on a flight though before just reading pdf and cbr format from a flash drive. That TM2 has no optical drive I c and smaller screen.. i dont know i dont think i would want anything smaller then 12.1 seems about right for a normal page size feel imo. I can run TF2 on the Tx2Z with its AMD 3200 IGP at medium to high settings.
Click to expand...

The tm2's screen is the same size as the tx2's. Yes no internal optical drive am that's just not an issue these days. HP offers external USB standard DVD and Blu Ray drives. Most people simply don't need to carry optical drives everywhere

But yeah, you can get the tx2 pretty hot. For instance the tx2 is problematic when I use it in bed. Resting on sheets seemed to interfere with air flow and it just gets hot and noisy when running on balanced mode. this just isn't an issue with the tm2.

And the tm2 is much better built. It just feels more solid than the tx2.
 
ahh your right seemed smaller in a picture i was looking at. Not sure how strong that 1.3ghz croe duo is though.
 
I have the 1.6 and to be honest the tm2 runs faster than my tx2 with 2.4 GHz Turion. The Turion is faster in brute force but the tm2 just runs better. People who have the 1.3 GHz CPU tell me that their machines run just fine.

You're not the first person that I've talked to to have this concern but the C2D is just an EFFICIENT CPU.

I just don't use the tx2 anymore. The tm2 really outclasses by a good bit in just about every way.
 
I'm sorry these reviews all came off as Apple masturbation.

"Somewhere between a cellphone and a notebook.." EXCEPT ITS NOT A F***** PHONE.

Quit comparing this POS to an Iphone. It's not a goddamn phone. it's a giant retarded ipod touch.
 
Well ease of use is a biggie here. Being able to just hit your app and watch a TV show or a Movie is a big deal. Apple makes listening to or watching your media easy. Im not talking about those of us here who know how to encode video or change file formats or whatever. Im talking about the average person.

My 80 year old mom is going to love the one Im getting her. She is going to be able to sit down, watch her movie or look at photos or browse the web and she is going to be completely happy.

If she had the HP tablet she would have to do a lot more work. And thats what I think the problem is going to be for the competing devices.
The public wants ease of use. I think the next wave of devices coming out that are going to run a full blown OS are going to fail..at a commercial level. Wheres the NEW or WOW factor in a tablet running Windows?..I already have a laptop and two desktops running Windows. Do I need my tablet to run Windows also?..Isnt the HP product, which i love the look of, just more of the same?

I want my IPAD experience. I just dont want it from APPLE.
 
no it doesnt have a webcam. no clue why thats a dealbreaker for some.

yes, it multitasks, there are apps that will run in the background already ready at launch (like pandora) and more coming with the iphone os 4 update. for the most part, the default view for ipad apps are single app view only. but again, thats going to change with the iphone 4 os update.

umm.. widescreen? if you turn it on its side, its widescreen, im sure you know this so im not sure what you meant by that. clarify?

you will be able to plug in digital cameras with a cheap adapter which im sure we'll find on monoprice for next to nothing within a month.

no it doesnt have flash, but its got mp4 support and html 5 support. but lets be honest. 90 percent of the people that use flash these days, use it only to watch youtube and hulu. a pay for hulu app is coming (apparently the whole site will be behind a pay wall soon for the most part). youtube isnt a problem. i think people are making flash a bigger deal than it really is.

anyway, just my opinion. theres so many great applications for the iphone and ipad. i cant wait to get mine. i say this, as a droid owner. i love my phone but googles app store doesnt hold a candle to all the fantastic things that are available for the iphone/ipad.

personally i like andy inhatko's review. andy has a reputation for being a stand up guy when it comes to reviews and doesnt tow the line like mossberg and pogue. leo laporte trusts his word and integity. thats the only reference i need.

heres a link to his review. mp4 format.

http://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp4...deo/mbw/mbw0188/mbw0188_h264b_864x480_500.mp4
 
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