So I am Thinking of Purchasing an Ipad...

[Jamieson 90]

I would say get a notebook. I bought a really powerful one for around £400 which is about the price of the Ipad I think, you can get ones much cheaper than that though.

Mine has a battery life of 9-10hours so it is great for everything I use it for. It?s very small and compact and is very light and fits into my bag. It also has Wireless, Bluetooth, Webcam + Mic, HDMI ports etc.

The only drawback is that it does not have a DVD/CD drive. When I bought it though the store manager did a deal and included a separate external drive so you can install software and play DVD/CD etc.

To me the Ipad like all Apple products is just a gimmick/fashion accessory, it may look good but you can get something cheaper that offers better value that does the same job.

 

[Kei Kaemon]

Well to be honest my netbook was from when they were new and what not, and yeah sometimes if I was carefull I could strech it to 5 hours, but that was hard.

 

[Contextualizer]

Unless you are just out of the cradle or about to head into a grave, the iPad is really a secondary/tertiary device. You need a laptop more than a tablet slate, particularly if you're generating meaningful content.

 

[Shiny Rabbit]

I'd wait for the price to drop (leave it a month and it's bound to plummet, unless Apple really don't want to sell it) if you must get one, but I'd rather get a netbook or a laptop

 

[Doc Incognito]

I am thinking of buying a Kindle personally.Just want the reading thing,but 259$....kind of much

I use the Barnes and Noble Nook, which, while being the exact same price, is quite nice. I've had it for a couple of months, and the books are cheap, the reading is easy, and it can even play music files, although it can't hold a great deal of them. I'm not sure how it compares to a Kindle, but I like it.

I saw that for sale and was interested in it as well, what format does their ebooks use? That's another reason the Ipad is kinda warming up on me, it supports a large amount of the formats used.

The website says EPUB, PDB, and PDF are supported.

 

[Deofuta]

Unless you are just out of the cradle or about to head into a grave, the iPad is really a secondary/tertiary device. You need a laptop more than a tablet slate, particularly if you're generating meaningful content.

Well that is the crutch of it. I am looking for a combination of secondary devices. Something for some easy word processing and more importantly its potential as an EReader. Yes, it is replacing my dead laptop, but that is simply because I had already replaced the laptop with a desktop. The most meaningful thing it will do is allow me to get my college texts for cheaper, remove some of the heavy lifting I do, take notes in class, and wow my friends/attract criticisms from other techies.

The website says EPUB, PDB, and PDF are supported.

It also supports various others through applications. (Like the Kindle App)

EDIT: Here we go I found the chart. Its on Wikipedia so I suppose I should be a little careful in believing it, but check it out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats
scroll down to supporting hardware

 

[GE2E]

What netbooks are you guys using? I have the Samsung N140 and it struggles with anything beyond basic tasks.
Seeing as someone is subsidising it, I'd say go for it!

Five minuits of your time gets me one step closer to my masters. Do this questionaire.
http://home.wmin.ac.uk/psychology2/Daniel/30shirtQuestionnaire.asp

 

[VanityGirl]

I am thinking of buying a Kindle personally.Just want the reading thing,but 259$....kind of much

Go for the Kindle. I will be getting one for my birthday. My mom owns one and I played with hers, it's a nice little thing to have. If you are in school or have a job in which you may need to check a reference book quite a bit, then a Kindle could really come in handy.

I love it and can't wait till I get mine!

 

[nick n stuff]

notebook. usb ports and cd roms drives etc are invaluable. never tried one but most people on this forum seem to think they are slow and clumsy in comparison

 

[Contextualizer]

Well that is the crutch of it. I am looking for a combination of secondary devices. Something for some easy word processing and more importantly its potential as an EReader. Yes, it is replacing my dead laptop, but that is simply because I had already replaced the laptop with a desktop. The most meaningful thing it will do is allow me to get my college texts for cheaper, remove some of the heavy lifting I do, take notes in class, and wow my friends/attract criticisms from other techies.

All of my friends are in college/grad school and the ones who have iPads also have at least a netbook. It's insane to actually try to take notes on an iPad while in a class. They will tell you that the best use for an iPad right now is for when you're on the toilet for a #2.

 

[Kei Kaemon]

I'd wait for the price to drop (leave it a month and it's bound to plummet, unless Apple really don't want to sell it) if you must get one, but I'd rather get a netbook or a laptop

Oh yes, the millions of iPads sold at this point at this price point will really show apple that they have to lower the price, no one else is willing to buy it...

Yeah....

No, expect the price to stay the same for a while.

 

[Virgil]

Do you own an Ipad?

Yes, I do.

How is the virtual keyboard?

The virtual keyboard is a passable interface device, and with the auto-correction it tends to work well. For light use, it works nicely. The bad thing about it is that it can be quite complicated when you start using punctuation.

Should I think about purchasing an actual keyboard?

If you're going to use it as a web browser and for occasional emails, then you're fine without it. If you actually plan on doing some real typing on it though, you'll want physical keys. This goes double if you'll be writing things about math, or doing any kind of programming

As far as I know, any bluetooth keyboard will work, so even if you don't like the Apple ones you should be able to find another one you like.

What I've found is that the iPad does not replace the actual power of a laptop for doing real work, but it does make a nice substitute for an eReader or a netbook for some reading, web browsing, email, and some light note-taking. It also is, by far, the best device I have found for reading PDFs (and that includes PCs/laptops).

If you do end up picking one up, may I suggest Battle for Wesnoth, Civilization Revolution, and Plants vs. Zombies as a great set of games to try out. They're totally worth it.

 

[GLo Jones]

Do you own an Ipad?
How is the virtual keyboard?
Should I think about purchasing an actual keyboard?

I have (and am using) an iPad, and the only issue I've found with it, is that you can't upload saved files through the browser.

As for the virtual keyboard, if turned on it's side, is quite good once you're used to it. The only issue I have with it sometimes is that I find the spacebar to be a tiny bit too small for me, and occasionally look back at what I've written to find the letter 'n' instead of a space (eg. "I reallynenjoyed our meeting").

There should be more and more apps coming out that help you learn to type better though, and people are saying you can learn to touch-type.

My advice: Go to an Apple store, and give the thing a good try, think how you'd feel using it long term (taking into consideration that'll it'll become more intuitive).

 

[GLo Jones]

Double post, my bad.

Not the iPad's fault!

 

[Ironic Pirate]

You'll rip your fingers off one by one with your bare hands (even the last one, somehow) trying to write something long on an iPad. It gives me a headache just thinking about it.

 

[Deofuta]

snip

THanks for the information,

Just thought of another question. As I am thinking of using it quite extensively as an EReader, how 'fast' is it,in regards to page loading? Right now it appears that the most crippling thing behind B and N's nook is that it takes quite some time to load between pages at certain points.

 

[Sneaky-Pie]

There's several trade offs with either option as I see it.

Netbooks:
+ Full OS capabilities, such as printing (is coming to the iPad, but not yet)
+ Small size and easy to use
+ Great hardware
- Small screen, if you're used to large resolutions, this may drive you crazy
+/- Battery life. Some net books get great battery life, while others not so much.

iPad:
+ Large, beautiful screen. Excellent for reading.
+ Battery life. The iPad boasts roughly about 10 hours of life on a single charge.
- Awkward. It's awkward to hold and difficult to use for extended use. There are accessories to help this however.
- Closed OS. The OS is very closed and under tight Apple control. If you get an iPad, Jailbreak it.
- Hardware. You have a small amount of memory available to you no matter what model you get. If you're into Cloud computing, this isn't too much of an issue.
+/- Virtual keyboard. At first I was gonna make this a con, but I own an iPod Touch. I found that once you get used to not having physical keys to type, the touch screen is actually pretty responsive and accurate. Sure, I would hate to type up a document on a touch screen, but you have a desktop for that kind of work.

I'll admit, I've been tempted into looking into an iPad for my secondary device as I would primarily use it an ereader (surprisingly though, my Touch does a pretty good job of this with the Kindle app) and would like a nice large screen. Despite that, I would honestly wait for the second generation models as they'll get better hardware and more features. That, and I would Jailbreak it immediately.

 

[Deofuta]

There's several trade offs with either option as I see it.

Netbooks:
+ Full OS capabilities, such as printing (is coming to the iPad, but not yet)
+ Small size and easy to use
+ Great hardware
- Small screen, if you're used to large resolutions, this may drive you crazy
+/- Battery life. Some net books get great battery life, while others not so much.

iPad:
+ Large, beautiful screen. Excellent for reading.
+ Battery life. The iPad boasts roughly about 10 hours of life on a single charge.
- Awkward. It's awkward to hold and difficult to use for extended use. There are accessories to help this however.
- Closed OS. The OS is very closed and under tight Apple control. If you get an iPad, Jailbreak it.
- Hardware. You have a small amount of memory available to you no matter what model you get. If you're into Cloud computing, this isn't too much of an issue.
+/- Virtual keyboard. At first I was gonna make this a con, but I own an iPod Touch. I found that once you get used to not having physical keys to type, the touch screen is actually pretty responsive and accurate. Sure, I would hate to type up a document on a touch screen, but you have a desktop for that kind of work.

I'll admit, I've been tempted into looking into an iPad for my secondary device as I would primarily use it an ereader (surprisingly though, my Touch does a pretty good job of this with the Kindle app) and would like a nice large screen. Despite that, I would honestly wait for the second generation models as they'll get better hardware and more features. That, and I would Jailbreak it immediately.

Good points, do they have a set date yet until the next generation comes out? Hell, have they even talked about it yet?

 

[octafish]

Well I'll weigh in. The ipad is primarily concerned with consuming media, not creating it.

I have a netbook, and I love it, I can play a tonne of games on it, ok old games, but my three favorites regardless. Xcom and JA2 run smooth as silk, and Silent Storm is as smooth as, um, well worn cotton drill.

As an E-reader, bleah. I'd recommend you use your desktop as an e-reader first and see how you go. I can't read for more than an hour at the longest on an LCD without developing eye strain. That isn't just my netbook, it's my 24" desktop monitor as well. Try it and see if it is practical for you.

My netbook, when used for light browsing and word processing lasts about 7 hours, when set to maximum performance that drops to about 4 hours, the ipad has it beat there.

Another thing to do before you decide is to disable Flash in your browser and see if affects your browsing experience. I know flash is shit and Apple not supporting it can only help it go away, but it is used everywhere. So try life without Flash and see if you can live without it. Don't expect to be able to play Neptune's Pride on an ipad.

I don't have anything against apple products, I think the macbooks are beautifully designed laptops, the chassis are so solid. I just can't justify spending Apple money.

 

[Sneaky-Pie]

There's several trade offs with either option as I see it.

Netbooks:
+ Full OS capabilities, such as printing (is coming to the iPad, but not yet)
+ Small size and easy to use
+ Great hardware
- Small screen, if you're used to large resolutions, this may drive you crazy
+/- Battery life. Some net books get great battery life, while others not so much.

iPad:
+ Large, beautiful screen. Excellent for reading.
+ Battery life. The iPad boasts roughly about 10 hours of life on a single charge.
- Awkward. It's awkward to hold and difficult to use for extended use. There are accessories to help this however.
- Closed OS. The OS is very closed and under tight Apple control. If you get an iPad, Jailbreak it.
- Hardware. You have a small amount of memory available to you no matter what model you get. If you're into Cloud computing, this isn't too much of an issue.
+/- Virtual keyboard. At first I was gonna make this a con, but I own an iPod Touch. I found that once you get used to not having physical keys to type, the touch screen is actually pretty responsive and accurate. Sure, I would hate to type up a document on a touch screen, but you have a desktop for that kind of work.

I'll admit, I've been tempted into looking into an iPad for my secondary device as I would primarily use it an ereader (surprisingly though, my Touch does a pretty good job of this with the Kindle app) and would like a nice large screen. Despite that, I would honestly wait for the second generation models as they'll get better hardware and more features. That, and I would Jailbreak it immediately.

Good points, do they have a set date yet until the next generation comes out? Hell, have they even talked about it yet?

Apple typically waits at least a year before rolling out new models. It doesn't sound like you really want to wait that long though. Buy a first gen and then sell it a year from now on Ebay before the second gen models release?