I’ve had my 32 GB 3G iPad for a couple of weeks at this point, so I decided to go ahead and post a personal review. Keep in mind, I’m not a tech guru, this review is strictly my opinion on the iPad. SINCE I’m not a huge techy, some of the review points will be fairly brief, but to the point. It will probably also be fairly unorganized. If you just want to read app reviews, skip to below!
For those of you who haven’t seen my Facebook, twitter, or played me on words with friends, I love my iPad! In the past, I’ve taken my Macbook Pro everywhere. Eeeeeverywhere. It’s a laptop sure, but less than portable. Late last summer, it decided it had had enough and crashed. Talk about a freakout moment. Now, I’m able to leave the MBP at the house, because I take my iPad with me. Before I start to ramble, let’s try and do this in a somewhat structured manner.
memory box photography iPad review.
CASING 10/10
A lot of people I know have gotten covers or cases for their iPads, as you would for an iPhone, but I think there’s something to be said for how great the silver casing the iPad has looks! I’m a fan of the “naked iPad” if you will! It’s very sturdy, and as it is with all Apple products, very clean and crisp. Simplicity at its finest! Just like with the iPhone, it has a home screen button on the bottom and a “lock” and power button at the top. The right hand side of the iPad has a volume ‘clicker’ as well as a screen lock. With the screen lock “engaged”, the accelerometer within the iPad wont change the orientation of the screen’s contents when the iPad is turned. This is awesome for reading my RSS feeds or a book while laying down!
memory box photography iPad review.
memory box photography iPad review.
DISPLAY 9/10
This was one of the first things I noticed when I held an ipad at the BestBuy store in Little Rock. Pictures are nothing short of vibrant on the crystal clear 1024 x 768 display. Everything looks magnificent on the display itself. The one downfall I could think about is that due to how glossy the screen is, it loves to show off those reflections and glares. It’s also pretty bad about showing fingerprint smudges. But that’s no big deal, I just wipe it down with a lens cloth and it’s good as new!
memory box photography iPad review.
memory box photography iPad review.
INTERFACE 10/10
I didn’t quite know what to call this, but the iPad is extremely sensitive and responsive to touch. Much more so than the iPad. It’s very intuitive, as one could imagine, while flipping through pages in a document, lists in an Inbox, or Photos in an album. I haven’t had any problems as far as typing, either. In a portrait layout, the keyboard will pop up on the bottom, which lets you use your thumbs fairly easily.
In landscape, the keyboard will show up at the bottom again, allowing a fairly natural use as a normal keyboard. If you type as fast as I do, you may have to slow down a little bit, or you will find yourselves a few words farther in your sentence than what is on the screen. It takes a little getting used to, but is great when writing emails or messages once you get used to it.
memory box photography iPad review.
memory box photography iPad review.
CONNECTIVITY 7/10
I bought the 32 GB iPad WITH 3G….and I have a confession to make…I have yet to try out the 3G. In all honesty, I’m somewhat nervous. Being a Verizon customer, I’m fairly spoiled. I see tweets, especially recently, complaining about AT&T dropping calls with full 3G coverage where they were, and things of that nature. I cant think of a single time I’ve ever had a phone call dropped by Verizon. Come June, I’ll be traveling all over the map, so I’ll probably subscribe to a month of 3G unlimited limits. But, for now, I’ll just judge the connectivity based upon the WIFI performance. This is where it lacks. The sensitivity (for lack of a more informed term) is lackluster. In my bedroom, where my laptop will show full connection to our house’s wifi, the iPad shows one bar at best. I’m sure this is easy to explain for someone who knows what they’re talking about…but I do not. Other than being somewhat weak in outer reaches of a wifi hotspot, it’s been great.
memory box photography iPad review.
memory box photography iPad review.
OVERALL 10/10
The common thing to hear people complain about is what the iPad can’t do. It can’t take pictures, it can’t take video, it can’t show flash objects. The list goes on for someone who is trying to find something that they can jab an iPad for. However, I choose to focus on what it DOES. On a photoshoot, with my camera connection kit, the iPad DOES do a phenomenal job allowing me to upload pictures onto my iPad, allow the client to see straight out of camera shots from mere minutes before, and allows them to hold it. From a photographer’s point of view, the iPad makes our work tangible. I can’t stress the importance of having something tangible to show a client. In client meetings, instead of waiting on my 17″ Macbook Pro laptop to boot up, then showing them in Finder some of my work, I can hand them my iPad and say, “Yea…go crazy.” They get to hold the images. Did you catch that? They hold the images. That’s huge.
Since I’ve had my iPad, I’ve been able to leave my laptop in the house, on a desk, safe and sound. I use it for culling, editing, filling orders, etc. But for the most part, I do all of my internet browsing, RSS reading, Tweeting, Facebook stalking, news reading on my iPad. I’ve loved every minute of it.
Apple did a great job with creating and advertising a need, then developing a great product to fill the need they just created. It’s not for everyone. Some people have asked if they should get an iPhone or an iPad instead. Frankly, that comes down to each situation. I wont sit here and say everyone needs to go get an iPad right now, but I will say that I dont know anyone who wouldn’t enjoy one. A lot of people try and say, “Oh, I have a mini iPad,” and show their iPhone. Or claim that it’s a big iPod touch. It’s so much more than that, but until you try it out, you won’t understand why.
memory box photography iPad review.
memory box photography iPad review.
==========================
Here’s a quick note about the accessories that I have for the iPad.
The first is an Incase brand slip sleeve. Rather than zippers, it has a slit about 1/5 the way down the back which allows the iPad to slide in, and then you wrap the top 1/5 around the top, much like the back of a throw pillow or something. It’s extremely snug, and at times inconvenient, but I love it! It shipped with a “iPad Stand” Incase included in the package. It’s garbage. Every time I’ve tried to use it, it’s dropped my iPad. And also given me a heart attack.
I also have the iPad Apple Camera Connection Kit. It’s been great. Ships with a connector that plugs into the Apple port by the Home button, and allows you to upload via SD card, or if you have a card reader, CF. Importing is super easy: the screen pops up, you touch the thumbnails of the images you want, and import. They’re stored in your All imports album in your photo screen. Easy peasy. This is especially great for wedding receptions!!
==========================
memory box photography iPad review.
memory box photography iPad review.
APPLICATION REVIEWS
Here’s what I really was wanting to write about…my favorite and most used Apps! They’re judged completely objectively, for better or worse. My apologies, but this isn’t in any particular order!
memory box photography iPad review.
memory box photography iPad review.
Words With Friends HD $2.99 RATED: 10/10
I LOVE Words with Friends. I’m addicted. Before I had my iPad, I played a few of my friends and favorite photographers on my girlfriend’s iPhone. This was the first app I got when I received my iPad. There’s nothing crazy cool about Words with Friends, it’s just fun entertainment. It also includes a chat feature, which has been great as I get to know the people I play that I haven’t met in real life. The HD version on the iPad allows you to see the entire screen without having to zoom in to see well. Just like scrabble, the advantage of Words With Friends is that it’s turn based, but not time sensitive. So, I can play at my own pace. Currently, I have 19 games going! I dont know how many Words lets me play at once, but at least 19! If you want someone not too skilled to play against, feel free to hit me up: AustinJWalker
memory box photography iPad review.
memory box photography iPad review.
FeeddlerRSS Free RATED: 7/10
On my desktop, using Mail.app, I have 53 RSS feeds I subscribe to, ranging from photo blogs to twitter searches to friends’ blogs of trips. When I got my iPad, I knew I wanted to be able to read these wherever I went. Feeddler has been the best free option I’ve found yet. I had to go through the process of putting them all in my Google Reader account (Feeddler draws from there to find out what RSS feeds to check). The interface is simple enough, but some of the posts are painful to try and click on links. At times, it feels like Feeddler just feels like not opening the link. If anyone else has another RSS reader they’ve had great experience with, that would be incredible. Feeddler does the job, but not in an enjoyable way.
memory box photography iPad review.
memory box photography iPad review.
Twittelator $4.99 RATED: 9/10
Shameless plug….@austinjwalker. Follow me. Ok, now that that’s out of the way, I used to used Twitterific, and was fairly satisfied with it, especially for a free app. However, a good photographer friend of mine, Michael Baxley, told me to check out Twittelator. In landscape, Twittelator lets you see your feed, as well as your @replies, direct messages, searches, drafts, and lists. Click on a tweet in your feed, and it gets its own box in the main (right hand portion) section of the screen, allowing you to retweet, forward, reply, favorite, etc. Or you can view stats of the person who tweeted the message. I owe Baxley a huge thanks for getting me hooked on Twittelator. I’m always skeptical of any app that makes me pay $5 for what seems to be something basic, but Twittelator is definitely worth it.
memory box photography iPad review.
memory box photography iPad review.
WIRED Mag. $4.99 RATED: 10/10
Ladies and gentlemen….this is what a magazine SHOULD be like. You open the app, and you’re greated with an interactive cover, complete with a link to watch exclusive content from the upcoming movie Toy Story 3. When you change from landscape to portrait, the pages dont “shrink to fit” but rather switch to an equally aesthetic layout. To browse article to article, simply swipe left or right. If you want to go deeper into an article or an advertisement, swipe up and down. Ads have links to their websites, articles have interactive audio, video, animations, and information. This is the future of the magazine world. Wired worked with Adobe for months before the iPad was even announced in order to be tablet ready. Well played, Wired…well played. At this point, I’m not sure if I paid $4.99 for the one issue of Wired, or for the future issues as well. I believe the print version for a subscription ends up being somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 cents, so hopefully it wont be a $5 charge for every issue, but honestly, it’s worth it even if it is.
memory box photography iPad review.
memory box photography iPad review.
Gravilux $1.99 RATED 9/10
Ok…I’ll be the first to admit…this is a totally pointless app. And at the same time, I find myself enamored by the fun of it. Gravilux gives you a screen full of dots, and your finger touch is the graviational pull. All you do is manipulate these dots around the screen. You can even change the force of the gravity, whether it’s gravity or anti gravity, and the number of dots on the screen. There’s nothing more to this. This quick paragraph doesn’t do it justice. It’s mesmorizing, and it’s a time killer…but I love it.
memory box photography iPad review.
memory box photography iPad review.
ToDo $4.99 RATED: 9.5/10
This has possibly been the most productive $5 I’ve ever spent. A few months ago, I downloaded a trial of Things for my laptop in order to try and get myself organized. I liked it, but didn’t want to drop $20-30 for the iPad version. Then, I stumbled upon “ToDo”. In ToDo, I’m able to quickly type out a to do list, assign a due date and time for each item, whether it repeats, and more. You can even create a new project and create deadlines within the project. You can choose to have it remind you to call a contact, email a contact, visit a website, go to a location, or just a generic to do. I have weekly responibilities at work, and now ToDo will renew each weekly item so that I dont forget it. There’s also a “lightning add” option, which only asks for the ToDo item itself, and skips any of the details. It automatically assumes the item is due today. Being a “less than organized” person, with everything starting to pick up, ToDo has been a LIFESAVER. I absolutely love it. It’s so nice to know that if I think of something I need to accomplish for the day, or a phone call I need to make in a week, I dont have to find a pen to write it on my palm and hope I dont sweat at all the rest of the day.
memory box photography iPad review.
memory box photography iPad review.
Those are my “Heavy User” apps I’ve fallen in love with. There’s more, but I’ll just list them for you!
- ABC Player Free RATED: 7/10
- Netflix Free (Subscription Required….and worth it) RATED: 9/10
- Kindle Free RATED: 8/10
- USATODAY Free RATED: 9/10
- Popplet Lite Free RATED: 7.5/10
- Adobe Ideas Free RATED: 6/10
- Camera Bag $1.99 RATED: 6.5/10
- LightTrac $3.99 RATED: 7.5/10
- YouVersion Free RATED: 9/10 (Give me that Koine or a decent offline-available translation if you want a 10)
Well…There it is. A probably somewhat scatter-brained initial review of my iPad! I’d LOVE to hear what some of your favorite and most used apps are! Shoot me a comment on here and let me know!
Comments