The iPad!!

I think the first words out of my mouth when I first heard about the iPad were 'That is so stupid. Who would ever want a giant iphone???'. Well, I am eating my words now because we got one and I love it!

After reading and listening to many people talk about the iPad, Paul thought it might be pretty cool. I was slowly coming around, but we really didn't have a need. That is until the wireless card on my laptop overheated to its death and we discovered it would cost around $400 to fix. We also learned that Compaqs often have this problem and shorty after the wireless card dies, the motherboard dies. It's almost 4 years old, so I guess it's time. Anyway, we decided this was the perfect excuse to buy the iPad, and Paul even went to the mall at 8pm last Thursday only to discover they were sold out. He called the next morning and the store had recieved a shipment, so he headed over to pick it up and we were proud owners of a 16 gig iPad by noon.

I must admit it's pretty cool - much cooler than I thought. Here's WHAT I LIKE:
1. Quick on/off - it's turns on in a second and off in a second. The laptop took several minutes to boot up, so if I wanted to look something up quickly, it wasn't going to happen in less than 5 minutes.
2. Long battery life - enough said. I've never had a laptop with a battery that actually worked.
3. APPS!!! - The apps are really cool, although I really haven't fully explored them. Paul has been finding all kinds of cool things. So far, I have a calendar and calorie counting app. Paul has found much more interesting things like a magazine reader (download issues of mags you like), Pandora (which I really like), weatherbug, ABC (to watch shows), Chipotle ordering, and several others.
4. Portability - it's so easy to carry around. If I want to look up a recipe, an actor on imdb, check my e-mail, facebook, etc. I can do it quickly (see #1) and anywhere I want (bathroom, kitchen, outside, baby's room, etc.). And, it's so light and small, I can easily check things anywhere while doing other things like feeding a baby, walking around, cooking, talking on the phone etc. YOu just can't do that with a laptop.
5. Screen quality - it's very sharp and clear. Great for TV shows and pictures.

THINGS I DON'T LIKE AS MUCH:
1. Internet is limited - there are some features on the internet that don't work as well. For example, I can't chat with online friends on facebook. We have a desktop, so it doesn't really matter that much.
2. You can't print - there is no print feature, so I can't print anything from the web. Hopefully they will fix that in the future.
3. You can't do 2 things at once - Windows is really great for that. For example, I can't listen to Pandora and do anything else online like facebook or searching for things.
4. The Keyboard - it's pretty good, but I'm old fashioned, I guess, and I like my keyboard for fast typing. I can type pretty well with the touch screen keyboard, but it wouldn't (in my opinion) be so great for doing something like writing a blog. To its credit, it is big and pretty accurate when touching it.
5. USB - there is no USB port, so I can't do things like upload photos from a camera or install any other kind of software. But, I don't really think it's supposed to fully replace regular computers.

The iPad serves a particular purpose, for us at least. We used the laptop mostly for using the internet and checking/writing e-mails. So, for that, it is great. If we are watching a movie and want to know who that familiar actor is, we can turn it on and look up imdb.com in a matter of seconds. I can quickly check e-mails, facebook, weather, airplane status, recipes, etc. from anywhere in the house very, very easily. We still have our desktop for word processing, photo storing and editing, document storing, etc. We can take it on the road and use it easily anywhere there is wireless. So, overall we love it so far! I give it a 'B' because I think there are some things that can be improved, but hopefully that will come with time.