iPad reviews are in, and it's just like Steve Jobs demoed!

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 02 April 2010 15:13

Your IT - Home IT

The first iPads have landed in the hands of various US reviewers, and a couple of days (US time) before the iPad itself officially launches, the first, 'first look' reviews of the iPad have already hit US publications.

Well, fancy that. It looks like the iPad that Steve Jobs demoed, the iPad that has been seen in Apple's video clips, the iPad that operates like an iPhone or iPad Touch on steroids actually does what it says on the tin - but did we really expect anything different?

It's really not that often that any of us can say that some cool new gadget worked anywhere near as well as the demonstrations suggest they will, but the various iPad reviews that have come in from the usual suspects in the US media have all effectively praised the iPad for working as expected, even better than expected, following initial scepticism the iPad would be good for anything.

Yes, criticisms have emerged of there being no Flash player, which is even more visible on the iPad's larger screen which displays so much more of websites in one go, the lack of a front/back facing camera, or multitasking, but there has been praise on how smoothly everything works, how the on-screen keyboard is nice enough to type on (but you wouldn't necessarily want to be writing any novels on it) and how the battery life for some reviewers has exceeded the stated 10 hours.

Some reviewers seem to have received the complete kit of iPad kit, with that black cover/stand, the iPad keyboard dock and the video out cables. Probably the most striking of all those accessories is the fact the keyboard dock is a bit heavier than expected, so the whole thing doesn't keel over easily.

The Pages app reportedly shows no slowdowns in keeping up when typing on the physical keyboard and pairing with Bluetooth keyboards has worked for those that have tried it.

Some reported success in using various iPhone accessories but more on this will come to light in the future, there's word that the iPad USB cable can charge the iPad when connected to a PCs USB port in both operation and sleep mode if that USB port has enough power - with USB ports not offering enough power seemingly still able to charge the iPad in sleep mode. Mileage might vary.

There's no pair of white iPod (or iPad) headphones in the box, nor headphones with a microphone input, but existing headphones for iPods and iPhones work just fine.

There's also no onboard voice recording app but third party apps work just fine to record audio from the inbuilt microphone and or that from the iPhone's headset.

Continued on page two, please read on.