iPad 2 initial test drive

Having purchased iPad 64GB WiFi on Thursday I already feel at home with it. Definitely better with the on screen keyboard than the separate wireless one … And at around £65 I’ll give that a miss. I was apprehensive about a touch enabled operating system, I’ve never even used a touch phone but I have to say it’s second nature already. And while we’re on operating systems I’m already looking forward to iOS5 in Q4 as the area I’ve avoided so far is data syncing (juries still out on the best place for my iTunes library) so the iCloud may be the answer. Seems little point in signing up for a MobileMe account at this stage.

Downloading apps is a breeze and Internet connection over wifi was easy at base but more challenging at a WifI HotZone. Email simply worked at base but over WiFi Hotzone is happy to receive mail but refuses to send and I’ve tried a collection of smtp servers so far. Not sure if this is a generic hotspot issue which would equally have hit a netbook? Contacts were easy to setup and use and the email app is not Outlook but perfectly functional, wonder if there are others?

I’ve downloaded a bunch of apps but most fun so far has definitely been with Star Walk and Plane Finder. Star Walk in camera mode is awesome, allowed me to ID the ISS as it sailed past at sunset last night! Also rans are: Kindle, BBC iPlayer and iBooks. Having never used nor wished to get a Kindle (at £110!) I need to spend more time with this one and really see how it feels for an extended read. Remoter VNC is setup but I still need to iron the kinks out with the VNC Server as it wouldn’t connect using the VNC Viewer on the PC either.

Graphics are excellent as expected and the touchscreen is easy and the on screen keyboard a doodle – makes Microsoft’s Windows 8 touchy feelly hack seem a bit “me too” and it’ll be interesting to watch how that progresses and more importantly how it is received. Only probes so far have come while typing this blog. Scrolling and text selection (particularly selecting multiple words or a paragraph) within WordPress has been a pain but that may just be my inexperience, more anon.

All in all a very impressive piece of kit so far (still not sure it warrants the price tag though) and I have to admit my Windows 7 desktop seems steam driven when I go back to it even after this short time 🙂 You can see why PC sales are waning when a tablet PC like this can offer web browsing, email and word processing, why would you buy one now. NEXT UP: More apps, probably Pages 1st.

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