The smarter pad

Houston, the iPad has landed... well almost. Apple’s tablet may be a while away from its official launch in India, but that minor fact hasn’t stopped the faithful from picking it up. As US-returning colleagues and innovative online retailers supply India with its iPad fix (the latter at an exorbitant premium), we got our grubby fingerprints on one such device’s shiny new multi-touch display, and came away with these thoughts.

Straight out of the box, what hits you about the iPad is how it is like a much bigger iPod touch, and all that glass and metal makes it a lot heavier than I expected it to be, at least for extended use without any sort of support. It feels excellent in the hand, and it’s built to Apple’s high standards. And it’s damn good looking to boot, but I’d say Apple played safe on this front. The controls are minimalist like the iPhone — a volume control, a screen-orientation lock (which forces the device to remain in landscape or portrait mode), a power / sleep button and the bare-minimum headphone jack and Apple 30-pin dock connector alongside a single thin speaker on the bottom of the unit.

And much like the iPhone, this baby is all screen, and that’s where the wows and whistles start. Apple’s 9.7-in 1024x768-pixel LED-backlit capacitive display does not disappoint one bit either in terms of brightness or colour reproduction, and is as responsive to the touch as the iPhone. Apple’s got touch right, and the iPad flaunts it ’cause it’s got it. The device itself is pretty darn fast, and pulls out all the user interface stops to give you a visually stunning experience.

Now, if you’re used to the iPhone or the iPod Touch, getting started on the iPad is a no-brainer. Everything works pretty much the same way, and with the increased screen estate, the multi-touch gestures are such a joy to use. It really is that intuitive. If anything, it’s typing on the device that will take a little getting used to. The portrait keyboard is practically unusable, and I found the landscape keyboard much better. Set it down on your lap and you can get typing reasonably comfortably within a little while. But how comfortable is it for serious heavy-duty typing? Here’s a hint: I’m typing this review on my laptop.

Of course, the real story for a device like this is the apps, and while it supports running almost all the current iPhone/iPod apps in a windowed mode or in full screen (by zooming the app to fill the iPad’s display), it’s really the apps that have been re-designed for the iPad that use this larger screen to best effect. I quite loved the new Mail app, which lets you see the email list in one half, and the email contents in the other. Mind you, most of the iPad-specific apps are much more expensive than their iPhone counterparts, so proceed with the app-shopping with caution!

But that’s not what has got you reading this far, is it? You want to know if the iPad is for you, don’t you? I’m going to have to go with a big… ‘depends’. It is without doubt a great media, gaming and internet consumption device. It is a good e-book reader — the screen is clear and very readable. It’s a great device to pack in for the vacation if all you need is some e-mail, some web surfing and watching movies and playing games. Add to that a great 10+ hour battery life, and the iPad is set to be carried along all day long.

Some even swear by getting their work done on it, but for me, a notebook replacement it is not, at least not for serious work. Plus, it lacks a few things some may miss in version 1, like a camera, a USB port and separate user accounts. Even so, it is doing better… a lot better than all the previous tablet PCs launched, and has sparked off renewed interest in this form-factor. And to be fair, it isn’t meant to do everything, and I’m not even referring to the flame-bait that is Flash. But it sure makes doing a lot of what you do everyday a whole lot more fun.

• Rating: 8/10
• Price: starts at $499
• URL: http://www.apple.com/ipad/


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