IPAD what one

[chris ashdown]

Looking at I-Pads and see a choice of memories but no details of what size the average user needs or even if you can upgrade latter from say 16 to 64 gb

Also if say you buy the cheapest can you expand by plugging in a 3g dongle if required or are you forced to make the choice at purchase

Sorry to ask such simple questions but nobody sells them in our town and web sites seem to be just descriptive and not review orintated

So let the Apple experts speak

[Mike Hughes]

1. There's a new IPad on the way. Rumours suggest it will be announced in Q1 and in the shops April/May.

the new one will have (apparently):

- Cameras (for facetime, etc)
- Better display.
- Faster processor / more memory
- USB port (though this is more speculative than the other features)
- Possibly graphite chasis to make it lighter.

2. The 3G ones are about £100 more than the vaniila wi-fi.

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/hom...ad/family/ipad

Whether you think it's worth it will depend on your use.

3. You can't upgrade (or use external memory on the current version) so it's probably worth going 'large' on memory if you think you'll keep for more than a year or two. Mind you, 32GB is a lot of memory.

4. Orange and T-mobile are now doing 3G IPads on a 24 month contract for £199. See http://crave.cnet.co.uk/laptops/ipad...bile-50001793/

I'm going to wait for the new version to arrive early next year.

Mike

PS. I'm no apple expert so I'm interested to hear what everyone else says.

[leehack]

I agree with Mike, wait until the next version, the competition have theirs out now and Apple are onto the second version having seen what the comp are doing. I don't usually advocate waiting when technology is involved, because there will always be an argument to wait, but on this occasion i do think it's a good idea. Even if you don't want to wait until the new one comes out, wait until it is getting close as you should pick up a much better deal for an existing one, buying this sort of thing, this side of xmas is just not cricket imo, you want to be making a commercial decision, not a xmas one.

[chris ashdown]

Thanks both of you for your views, Not really looking at buying one yet but trying to understand mainly how much memory you need (yup I know its an impossible question) but do mr average or Mrs if applicable buy say the 16 and get upset 3 months latter.

I do tend to think that the new suppliers will offer far more connectivity than apple and probably end up a better buy for software etc and cut costs by selling just one version towards the top end of specs

I thought that some of you high flyers on the forum, would be singing their praise and giving numerous examples of how they use it to improve life or at least work

[pinbrook]

me too, i'm waiting a while longer too.(coupled with the fact if i ger one i wont use my iphone anymore thus chucking away 12 months of contract) i am also interested in what other manufacturers will bring out too but i feel the apple apps store is far better than any thing android can do (given android suffers from too many platforms to support)

as far as storage is concerned i dont think you should be looking to store anything long term on these devices so small storage should be sufficient - its not a pc so apart from music and photos what else requires disk space?

my 10" eeepc brought 18 months ago with 16gb solid state disk still serves me well for storage! coupled with a 8gb SD card for backup.

[Duncan Rounding]

When it replaces my laptop then I'll consider it.
I would like to see a Macbook in this format with the same touch screen.

[chris ashdown]

me too, i'm waiting a while longer too.(coupled with the fact if i ger one i wont use my iphone anymore thus chucking away 12 months of contract) i am also interested in what other manufacturers will bring out too but i feel the apple apps store is far better than any thing android can do (given android suffers from too many platforms to support)

as far as storage is concerned i dont think you should be looking to store anything long term on these devices so small storage should be sufficient - its not a pc so apart from music and photos what else requires disk space?

my 10" eeepc brought 18 months ago with 16gb solid state disk still serves me well for storage! coupled with a 8gb SD card for backup.

Does not the Apps eat up the space, thinking in the future most applications soon become bloatware.

Maybe i should just go back to sleep and retire gracefully

[pinbrook]

FWIW my phone is 16gb this gives 14.3 gb usable space.

I've got 28 apps, 389 photos, 133 songs with 11.9gb free

[Duncan Rounding]

My 16Gb iPhone 3G was nearly full till I deleted a whole lot of stuff recently. The space was mainly taken up by podcasts - most of which I had subscribed to but never watched. Incidentlly after deleteing a whole lot of stuff and reverting to factory defaults then restoring my data and settings it works a whole lot faster than before. It was also full of apps (couldn't load any more) until the update to allow folders came along.

[Buzby]

I am posting this on my 64gb 3G ipad

I went to Apple store to get 32gb wifi but only model they had in stock was 64gb 3G, so I had to get it, and glad I did.


I thought 32gb would be enough but I am just over that now so 64gb was the right choice.

I wasn't bothered on getting 3G but am really glad that I did. This is the one upgrade that I would recommend. We have a 3 dongle 3gb for £7.50 a month which sat on the shelf in case of emergency. Now the sim card lives in the iPad.

We now use the iPad when out on business instead of a laptop and operate the business pc and Actinic using the brilliant log me in app.

If you get the 3G version and alread have a sim that you can use, look on eBay for the machine that cuts a normal sim down to size.

[BPJ553]

I've just picked up a 32gb wifi only option. Typing on it as we speak!

I've wanted one for ages but held off not knowing exactly what I'll do with it.

Well, i got fed up of waiting for a reason. So I've had it for a few days and still don't know what I'm going to do with it!

All I can say is "shiny shiny".

You don't need one. I don't think you can justify having one over a small laptop from a productivity point of view. It is too limited. But who cares. This is just one slick gadget for messing around on. surfing the net. Music, movies, email.

I'll will be getting the logmein app as soon as I can get it to connect to iTunes properly. I think that is as far as the productivity side will go for me. Control your 'real' computer with this pretend one.

I don't regret buying it. It's ace. But a substitute for a laptop it ain't.

[guccij]

Thumbs up for the 64GB version, also Logmein. You can also use Splashtop Remote if you are on the same network as the PC you want to access.

We didn't go for the 3G version. We use a mini wireless router with dongle if we need to when we're away.

[graphicz]

Will there be an app one day to install Actinic on an iPad or Galaxy Tab? It would be nice to use designer on one?

Does anyone know if you can Dreamweave and Corel on Pad or Tablet?

[Duncan Rounding]

I very much doubt it. The only chance you have of that wish is to perhaps use logmein or similar.