We acquired a 16GB WiFi iPad for my lab last week, for use in prototyping and sharing in meetings. I took possession of it at 11am on Wednesday, and left on a 48 hour trip to San Francisco that afternoon, so I got a chance to put the device through its paces on a long trip.
The verdict? It is, quite possibly, the best traveling gadget I've ever owned. Perfect for books, videos, catching up on email, posting tweets, checking Facebook, and playing games.
I brought my iPhone and my MacBook Pro on the trip as well. It's the first time that I haven't had my phone run out of battery on the first day of a trip (due to game playing and book reading and music listening on it while traveling). More remarkably, I only used my laptop once on the trip--to prep and then present my Powerpoint slides on Thursday morning. In fact, if there were a good way to present from the iPad version of Keynote (it would need to support a remote control), I could probably skip bringing the laptop entirely on many trips.
On the down side, it's not a great tool for getting real work done--I'm typing this review on my laptop, for instance. There are two primary reasons for this.
First, the onscreen keyboard is completely insufficient for text-heavy work. Yes, I could set up the iPad on a desk and connect my bluetooth keyboard, but that's a lot more awkward than sitting in my recliner with a computer on my lap.
Second, the lack of multiple windows and multitasking is crippling for anything other than the most basic email replies. I need to be able to switch between documents and messages and web pages. If Google Docs worked in a web browser, that would help, but right now the only way to work with my Word and Google based docs is by using a dedicated app (Office2HD) which can't run at the same time as a browser.
A review of the iPad in The Atlantic included the following line, which I think is right on target: "The netbook is a work machine on which you can procrastinate. The iPad is a procrastination machine on which you can work, especially if work mostly involves catching up on email."
I'd have to agree with that assessment. I definitely prefer the iPad to the Asus EEE PC I got last summer, and can absolutely see taking it as my only computing device on trips where I don't have a lot of significant content-creation work to do. But it's not going to replace my laptop anytime in the foreseeable future.
(The next post will be a discussion of the apps that have made the best first impressions on me.)
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