Great for the road warrior, April 4, 2011
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This review is from: Apple iPad 2 MC916LL/A Tablet (64GB, Wifi, Black) 2nd Generation (Personal Computers)
The iPad is an invaluable travel companion if you are a frequent travelet.Why do I preffer black vs white? If what you mostly do is watch videos on your iPad you want it with the black bezel because the video will blend with the black bezel and look larger than with the white it becomes kind of a distraction, this is the reason why most TV's in the market have a dark or a black bezel.
Portability of this thing is amazing, Its light and its easy to lug around when you are traveling. Also the battery life is exceptional, I'm bad at keeping my devices charged up and I have done a couple of 8 hour trips and my ipad was stil kicking when I landed and a few days after, Im truely surprized.
For those of you debating between the 3GAT&T, 3GVerison or the Wifi version, it depends on where you go to. I had the original 32 wifi only and I was very happy with it I noticed I got Wi-Fi access at a lot of places and I could also use the wifi hot spot on my phone to connect however, in recent travels I have been sent to middle of nowhere america where AT&T has no 3G coverage and hotels have no wifi (yes they are out there, hotels that still have no wifi) after I returned from my last trip to said location I decided I should get the Verizon iPad simply from the coverage perspective and since the 3G service is not on contract and the Verizon plans have more options I decided that was my choice. Now is this the best option for everyone, no! I think the 3G is just for a small amount of users the vast majority should be fine with a 16GB or a 32GB, if you know your way around the app market place and apps like Air Video Server and tools like DVD Fab and TVersity you dont need that much storage space on your iPad you can simply stream everything. Besides, I have a 32GB and I have 57 videos loaded in that 32GB iPad which if I watch 10-12 on a trip it is an overstatement, I'll watch a few on the plane but the rest, Im streaming from my Media Center at home or from NetFlix. When talking to people in line I was shocked at the number of people looking for the Verizon version when they do not travel, people if you are home most of the time just use your wifi, its cheaper and its faster! Another thing to note is that if you are an international traveller and want 3G the Verizon iPad is NOT Global wireless (so no 3G anywhere outside of the US) however wifi will work just fine.
You will see people complain about resolution and such and honestly, I think the resolution is perfect, the iPad is not meant to replace your laptop or your desktop or your TV, if it was why they would have bothered with airplay? If you are expecting to dump your laptop because you got an iPad think again, if you just use your laptop for browsing pages and playing games then you might get away with it however if you expect to do Office on these, think again, until MS gets their act together and decides that IOS is another venue of revenue for them I will still need to carry my laptop around to do word/excel/ppt files. Lack of flash support has not bothered me, yes I wish I could see some pages however, Im not in to the too flashy stuff (no pun intended) I rather get the straight text and keep going my only gripe would be that when Im conected via WiFi I would like to get full pages and not the mobile version however that is not an iPad problem it is a server problem.
Overall my score goes as follows
Comfort and portability A+
Battery Life A+
App Diversity and usability A+
Interface A+
Expandibility C (I dont need a USB port or anything like that however it is annoying that if I ever needed and expansion either I have to pay for an adapter or its not available)
TV Out Support B+ (simply judging that for HDMI you have to buy the dongle)
Cammera Quality C (who needs a cammera in their iPad anyways? Face time sure, rear facing meh)
Other thoughts:
Get a screen protector, I tried the Invisible Shield for my Gen 1 and hated it, the material removes the slickness of the screen and makes it harder to interact. I like the Splash screen protector, it is like its not there and it does make cleaning a bit easier.
Get a case this thing is beautiful but if you would like to maintain its resale value get a case that cover both front or back or separate covers, I think the Vapor case hack is pretty interesting.
Investigate tools like DVD Fab Video Converter (excellent for making iPad versions of your DVD's and BD's and it does take care of EVERYTHING for you from conversion to the right format to importing to iTunes) TVersity and Air Video for content streaming.
Be realistic on your expectations, I know Apple calls their products magic and their user interface and experience is fenomenal however there are limitations as to what these things can do so try to make an informed purchase that you are happy with instead of rushing and then having something that doesnt meet your expectations. For me I was debating between this and a mac book air however for me since I have to lug around my work computer anyways this won.
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