Hardware Reviews

iPad Battery Life: First Impression

One of the biggest doubts I had about the iPad was the battery life. I originally scoffed at the supposed 10 hours Apple was throwing about. I am happy to report though that from the box, and on a partial charge, I was able to get a solid 6 hours from my 16GB iPad.

My usage during this time was downloading all the free iPad apps I could find, web surfing, and watching the first 3 episodes of ABC’s new V TV series with their rather nice iPad app (full review of that
in the near future).

I will be interested to see how the iPad’s battery performs with a couple full charge and usage cycles under its belt. This unofficial battery test did lead me to discover one annoying “short coming” of the iPad: its include charging cable is way too flippin’ short. Although I did notice the iPad uses a similar power supply brick as my MacBook Pro, so I am going to see if I can extend the arrangement using the MBP cord.

iPad Mini Review

Having had a few hours hands on with my 16GB iPad, here are my initial thoughts.

The iPad feels solid, just like any other Apple device I have had in the last few years.  It is also heavier than I was expecting.  In your hands it is comparable to a hard cover novel in weight.

Setting the iPad up from the box was pretty straight forward.  You are given the option to restore your latest iPhone backup if you like, but I choose not to. I am glad I did this.  Many of the iPhone apps needed to be reinstalled from the App Store with their iPad specific version.  Universal app binaries that support both the iPad and iPhone are still not as common as you would expect.

I find myself trying to use both hands to navigate some of the iPad optimized apps, even when in portrait mode.  Not sure if that is intended, but it only sorta works when you are holding onto it with one of those hands.  Navigating iBooks, so far, is a breeze and very intuitive.  Watching video with the Netflix app is a dream come true.  Have not tried the ABC app yet.

Using Safari on the iPad makes for a truly enjoyable mobile browsing experience.  Except for the lack of plug-ins, I couldn’t tell I was using anything but a full version of Safari.

So far very please with the iPad.  Will be posting more thoughts as time allows.  It is a holiday weekend so time will be limit for awhile.  At least it will give me a chance to get others to use the iPad and give me their thoughts.