Apple iPad Review

This review has been delayed quite a bit, as both work, and me playing with my iPad, has taken up my time. But is this new Apple tablet really all it’s cracked up to be? I’m sure you’ve all read the reviews by the big guys, and even Engadget and Gizmodo’s review, but what about a regular guy, with no incentive to push out a review? While many people think that the iPad is nothing more than a glorified iPod/iPhone, are simply wrong. You’ve read my desire to buy one, now you get to read my amazingly real review.

On the morning of April 3rd, I waited in line at the Apple Store, in fact, I was the first in line! While, I truly despised Apple employees clapping and cheering, it was really nice to get the first iPad sold. Given the fact that most of my friends thought I was crazy for getting one, or the fact that it lacked certain features other devices should have had, I still went in with excitement. I was the first one to buy, and I was the first one out. I then drove home with my friend, eager to play with my new toy. I unfortunately didn’t play for too long, as I didn’t have any sleep the previous night, so I was running on fumes. I got home, activated, installed some apps, and fell asleep. During this time, I still had my netbook as my primary computer, which still couldn’t play HD video properly, or without overheating. So I would attempt to encode video to play on the iPad, but it took 9 hours to convert one little HD show. It wasn’t until a little app called AirVideo came out. This app let’s you stream all of your media from your computer, to your iPad. This was great, as I wouldn’t have to do any converting, but the Atom processor was still too slow for this. I then upgraded my system to a quad core i5 processor, and I was in heaven.

Watching videos on this display is amazing. Not only is the screen 9.7″, the resolution is 1024×768, with a 1Ghz processor inside. This baby can play full 720p video without breaking a sweat. I’ve put a full length Blu-ray rip of Minority Report on here, and wow, it plays it flawlessly, with no skipped frames, or any overheating. When people have said this thing is fast, they weren’t kidding. I have yet to have the iPad slow down at all, nor have I had to reboot it yet; it’s going on 28 days of uptime. My iPhone would have to have been rebooted after a week or so. The iPad does not disappoint in any way, despite only having 256MB of RAM (same as the 3GS). I was hoping for at least 512MB of RAM, but I honestly don’t notice the difference at all. Things just fly on the iPad, from web browsing in Safari, to watching videos, to playing games, the iPad is a beast. I’m hoping I can get to at least 6 months before having to reboot (or at least until the next software update). If the iPad performance is indicative of what’s to come for the next iPhone, sign me up!

Some of you might have heard about the bad things about the iPad, maybe from me, and maybe from other places, so I’ll just break down exactly what the iPad can’t do. As of right now, the iPad can’t do multitasking (until OS 4.0), it won’t play Flash videos (more on that in a minute), you can’t connect a USB hard drive to it for storage. And they’re right about everything, the iPad won’t do multitasking until OS 4.0 comes out, but I haven’t found too many cases where I’d really needed it. But then again, there hasn’t been a good IM client for the iPad yet, so maybe I’d feel it more if there were. Now we’re going to discuss the elephant in the room…Flash. Flash is the “technology” that most online video and most Facebook games use to deliver content. Flash isnt on the iPad, nor will it ever be. And let me be the first one to say “Good riddance”. Flash is a piece of crap that uses far too many resources on a desktop, makes my CPU work overtime, and drains the shit out of battery life, just look at the crappy JooJoo. If Flash on the desktop is crappy, how the hell does Adobe expect to make Flash workable on mobile devices? Yeah I can’t play Farmville on my iPad, or watch Hulu, but I’d rather have performance and battery life, than a few hours of Flash video. Plus HTML5 on the iPad works great, with no plugins, and no shortened battery life. I hate you Flash, and I always will. There’s no reason why I can watch a 1080p video on my computer with only 10% CPU usage, but with Flash, it’s 60-70% for just a 720p video. Pure and utter garbage.

I know the iPad isn’t for everyone, and I’m not expecting it to be, but it does a lot of things really well. You can easily browse the web from the comfort of your couch, without the additional heat from your laptop, you can sit in bed and do whatever you want, the possibilities are endless. While I still have a desktop for things I can’t do on the iPad, I still use the iPad for everything else. I’d just rather sit in bed and watch a TV show, than sit at my computer to do it. Given the fact that AirVideo can stream all my videos, I probably should have gotten the 16GB, but I did want that extra room just in case I go on a trip and need some movies/shows to watch. I’m even thinking about selling this one, to get the new 3G version, in case I want to bring the iPad to somewhere that doesn’t have WiFi, because it’s better to have it than not. If you’re still on the fence about getting one, go to Best Buy and try one out for longer than 5 minutes. You’ll love it just as much as I do. I mean, I have a friend who is very pro-Windows, said he tried it and hated it. What’s to hate about it? Try it out for longer than 5 minutes, seriously, you’ll really enjoy it. I can’t imagine being without it. I take it to work, even if I’m not going to use it, because again, I’d rather have it than not. For a tablet, $499 is a damn bargain! With so many great apps out there, it makes me wonder why more people aren’t getting one! It’s replaced my laptop, or at least my want of one, and will stay in my life for quite a long time. <3