Apple Tablet Review

It has been over a week since the apple tablet iPad has been revealed to the public with a lucky 50 tech companies experiencing firsthand the joys and disappointments of Steve Jobs latest creation. Now that the initial buzz has subsided and consumers are still two months away from the opportunity to purchase the apple tablet, what’s next for the iPad before its commercial release? Will the general public be ready to join the apple fanboys to help turn the iPad into the next consumer must-have tech product like the iPod or will the touch screen apple tablet become another disastrous product like the Pippin? The professional reviews are in, and what they uncovered with their initial impressions might surprise you.

The Good

Do you like the way your iPhone and iPod Touch operate? I hope so because the iPad runs a modified version of the same operating system, version 3.2 at the time of this writing. In fact, familiarity is a key selling point for apple. The apple tablet synchronizes your files with iTunes, charges with the same white 30 pin connection cord, purchases applications from the app store and even transfers the songs, videos, games and helpful apps that you already bought (avoiding a “double dip” of a dual purchase for the same content).

The screen resolution is beautiful. Every apple tablet review gushes about the 1024 x 768 high resolution display of the iPad’s 9.7 inch touch screen. The colors are vibrant, frame rate has minimal skip in the demo movies and videos games (these are pre-release beta’s, expect improved frame rate in the final product) and the multi touch feature works just as well as the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Most of the technological specifications of the iPad are fairly impressive. The 1 GHz custom CPU is said to be incredibly fast for a handheld device, able to instantly load and use the various applications. The built in wireless devices, WiFi and Bluetooth, will connect and run just as seamlessly as the current generation iPhones and iPods.  No details have emerged regarding the built in RAM, but expect it to be able to quickly handle all the programs of the apple tablet as easily as it does for your other apple products.

The Bad

Where to start? Storage on the iPad comes in three different sizes; 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB. No matter how this bit of information is spun, these are small hard drives for a product intended to compete in the netbook market. Flash drives come in the same sizes at a fraction of the cost. Even at their largest 64 GB, that can fill up very quickly with data especially with the projected applications expected for the iPad. Like watching movies and TV shows? With the minimal hard drive space it can barely hold a dozen movies and a single season of the average TV show. That’s okay though because the battery life is said to be only “about 10 hours” of video use.  Translation: the apple tablet won’t last a full day under regular use.

The Ugly!!!

No multi-tasking. Let me break down this deal breaker. A touch screen miniature apple tablet with the power of a netbook, same size as a netbook, costing twice as a much as the average netbook, designed to bridge the gap between cell phones (iPhones) and laptops (Macbooks) CANNOT RUN MORE THAN ONE APPLICATION AT A TIME! Want to read a book while listening to music on your iPad? Nope, it can’t handle that. How about loading a quick webpage for information to help that paper you’re writing? Sorry, you will have to close the word processor, open the browser, and copy the information you want, close the browser, reopen your paper and continue. For a mobile device, the inability to run multiple applications is without a doubt its greatest flaw. Also, there is no flash support, no webcam, no video messaging, no SMS (text messaging), no phone capabilities, no USB ports, monthly fees for access to the 3G network (exclusive to AT&T) and the list goes on.

Potential versus Reality

Nearly every apple tablet review speaks of the potential of the iPad. It has the capability to be apple’s next big thing, but its apparent flaws and suspiciously missing applications and now normal hardware specs also leave the door open for a major flop of Apple Lisa or Pippin proportions. The best analogy I’ve come across compares the Apple iPad to a concept car. Similar to a pre-production concept car, the apple tablet iPad introduces plenty of new technology, great ideas, sleek and modern design but its implementation aims at lofty goals while ignoring reality. It’s lacking in basic functionality that is now considered the norm and the reality is that there are simply too many flaws in the iPad’s initial version. I believe the overall consensus is to wait until the kinks are worked out and apple adds multi-functionality and flash support in the apple tablet iPad version 2.0.

Tags: apple, apple tablet, iPad, iPhone, iPod, iTablet, tablet

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 1:13 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.