Introduction
Yeah… With Apple iPad 2 announced, iPad price was cut as much as RM 400. This brings up lot of questions like “Should I wait for iPad 2 which have better hardware and features?“, “When can Malaysia get iPad 2 officially? I don’t want to wait until late November like iPad.” and “Is iPad good enough for me since it is much cheaper now” Hopefully, my Apple iPad (Wi-Fi + 3G) review and comparison with iPad 2 will help to answer your questions…
Hardware Design and Package Contents
Apple iPad 9.7″ Multi-Touch LED-backlit IPS display attracts me even though is has 132 pixels per inch only. Thanks to its crisp and vivid colour and great viewing angle. Besides, iPad is thin (13.4 mm) and light (0.73 kg) when compare to netbook. Great to carry around no indoor or outdoor. Check this page for details ~ Apple iPad Hardware Tour. As for package content, there are iPad, dock connector to USB cable, 10W USB power adapter, SIM eject tool and some documentations.
Software
iOS 4.2.1 + applications from App Store make iPad a wonderful tablet. There are 65,000 apps for iPad and 350,000 apps for iPhone in App Store right now. They are categorized in books, business, education, entertainment, finance, games, health & fitness, lifestyle, medical, music, navigation, news, photography, productivity, reference, social networking, sports, travel, utilities and weather. You will surely find the applications that suite your needs. New to iPad? Watch Apple iPad Software Tour video to know more.
Battery Life
No worry about iPad battery life. It serves me well for 2 days on single charge. And can be fully charged with 4.5 hours. I am the one that become tired first before iPad did…
Limitations
Adobe Flash is not supported. Heavily depends on iTunes like copy video, music files from PC to iPad. If iTunes does not like them, you can’t transfer them into your iPad. Cannot be charged through PC USB port. 10W USB power adapter is the only way to charge it (unless you have a Mac). Multitasking on iOS 4.2.1 will slowdown iPad when you open lot of applications. Furthermore, it will kill your previous opened applications especially games automatically when running out of memory. I can’t find a way to force 3G data connection only. iPad chooses to stays at 4 bars GPRS data connection while it can have 1 bar 3G signal. Internet connection is way too slow on GPRS…
Comparison with iPad 2
1 GHz dual-core Apple A5 custom-designed chip, thinner (8.8 mm), lighter (613 g), 2 cameras (back 720p HD and front VGA) and three-axis gyroscope on iPad 2 are the main differences compare to iPad. Both of them are still using the same 9.7-inch IPS display at 1024×768 pixel resolutions. And no word on memory amount too. Back to the question ~ to get iPad or iPad 2? If you can wait (for a long time), go for iPad 2 which is more powerful. Else get iPad at discounted price now and start enjoy it like I do in video below. Noted – you can’t FaceTime on iPad.
Conclusion
Apple iPad (Wi-Fi + 3G) is a great tablet to have. Lot of nice applications to choose from App Store. But it has limitations like no Flash support, iTunes dependency… By the way, be sure to sign up a broadband data plan like Maxis iPad Data Plan to get more out from iPad.
