For those of you that haven’t heard, Apple announced a new tablet today called the iPad. After reading the reviews and watching some videos, here is a quick list of thoughts that I have:
Pros:
- Really nice looking screen. It runs a resolution of 1024 x 768 on a 10 inch screen.
- Quick, custom processor running at 1 Ghz. How this really performs will remain to be seen, but the demos looked snappy.
- Nice e-book reader. It looks like Apple has also partnered with a few publishers to provide reading material. All of this will be part of their iTunes store.
- No flash support. I list this as a pro here because Adobe is not known for releasing secure plug-ins. Apple is no doubt using their own hardware video acceleration to provide HD video in certain formats while still maintaining good battery life.
- 10 hour battery life, with 1 month standby time. This will need to be verified once sites get review units.
Cons:
- No multitasking. This is a pretty big downer in my book, since you can’t have multiple programs (think Pandora radio and the e-book ready) running at the same time.
- Expensive, especially for models that include 3G coverage. At a $499 base price (add $130 for 3G coverage, plus monthly fee), I would have hoped for a little functionality (see the point above).
- Speaking of 3G coverage, it is being run by AT&T in the US.
- No flash support. This is a con also, since a lot of sites (including Hulu) depend on flash for video. Until more sites move to HTML 5, flash is still needed for viewing online video.
- No phone functions.
- No webcam.
- No hardware keyboard, unless you buy a dock.
Overall Thoughts:
If you are someone that doesn’t already have a laptop or iPod that just wants a device to browse the web or take advantage of Apple’s App Store, you want want to check out this device. I will be holding off for now, since there really isn’t anything that this device does that my laptop/iPod combo doesn’t already do. I will keep an eye out for an updated version of this device in the future.
Hands-on Video from Engadget.com:
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