hola gang,

I'm thinking about buying an iPad with a compact keyboard for my class note-taking purposes.

Besides that I just want to browse on it a little, play some music while I write.

Have any of you used the iPad, have comments on its usability, battery life, multitasking capability? (apparently an OS update lets you multi task now.

 

Note taking on a glass screen is really awkward - maybe do a quick sketch or something. If you want a keyboard, then a laptop is simply enough.

I've got a 12 inch Asus laptop (not a netbook) with a quad core CPU that lets me takes notes, can make photoshop or 3DS max work well enough, and most importantly isn't from Apple. Also, the notebook is quite thin (like 1" thin) and weigh 1.2kg IIRC. And the battery lasts about ~8-10 hours (can last about 12 hours if I work on Word with minimal screen luminosity and wifi off).

I've held an iPad in my hands, though I haven't really used it so I can't tell from experience though.

 

I have one (wifi, 64GB) and love it for very many things, however writing is not one of them. I find the mechanics of copy-pasta too clunky to be effective. It's not seamless enough to let me keep my train of thought while using a finger to highlight and drag the copy/paste bar around. I thought it'd be a temporary thing, that I'd get used to it with time and it wouldn't be a distraction, but that hasn't happened. If I want to write, my first instinct is to grab a laptop proper and hack away.

For note-taking, where you aren't striving for perfection, this may not be a problem. You will need an external keyboard, since the touch-keypad isn't practical for more than a few lines of text at a time. As an ebook reader, it's outstanding; I particularly like reading in the dark and this suits me. Web surfing is acceptable, provided you don't visit many Flash sites. Battery lifetime is entirely adequate--unlike working on a laptop, I don't find myself compulsively checking how much battery I have left.

It's light and easy to carry around. The interface is much cleaner than other touch-pads I've played with. It's not quite a general-purpose netbook replacement, though it's pretty close for those whose needs map well onto what it does well.

 

I have one for about 4 months? now, and aside from the subscriptions from Star Wars clone wars and a few newspapers, I mostly use it to read online comics and ebooks.

I don't get why you have to buy a separate keyboard, since I found fairly easy to use. (Never tried to use it on note taking though)

The battery life depends on usage of course, but I had used it for eight hours straight playing fighter plane/ watched a few episodes of clone wars before it got below 20 percent, with sound.

I suggest lowering the brightness to the second to the lowest setting, since I found it hurts the eyes after extensive use - even more than my laptop. I suggest you get earphones for it too whenever you travel, since the Ipad's speaker's aren't that good, except maybe when you're indoors and there's no noise.

I found no lag in any of the programs I used in the ipad, it's all very smooth, despite closing programs and using new ones in rapid succession.

I strongly suggest you get an Ipad case if you decide to get one, one that could be used to prop up the ipad if you're watching a movie in it.



(The case I have looks similar to this)

Picture quality is superb when I'm viewing albums.

The problems I had with Ipad, is whenever I travel to an area without a wifi connection. You can still view off line pages, but aside from bluetooth, there's no usb port that I can use to store up or change files and I had to buy an adaptor.

 

That.

My Not-Boss has one, and while he is insisting there isn't anything better than that, the moment he needs to write texts he switches to his macbook.

I just use my simple, lightweight, 8 hour long battery netbook. I open it and within 45 seconds I am able to write and surf. I close it and it shuts down on its own. I have an Apache Webserver running on it (for downloaded mangas and other stuff), MS-Office and that's all I need, and all that is not running on an iPad.

 

I hate them...

That said, the latest OS patch for the iPad was supposed to be enable multitasking and a bucketload of other cool things.

Seriously though, can't we convince you to get a nice ASUS netbook or wait out for the HP slate?

 

I use an iPad for client presentations, since it controls KeyNote pretty nicely. It's also nice for letting clients feel like they have a hands-on part in the building of their website, since OmniGraffle lets them play Note-taking is easy if you have a wireless keyboard.

As for it being a toy...meh. I've integrated it into my day-to-day fairly seamlessly. It helps that I didn't have to pay for it either, but I wouldn't be as adverse to buying one as I was when they first came out. That said, it's effectively kept me from buying any sort of netbook, as I can get a laptop for barely $100 more than a netbook nowadays.

To answer you directly, Nuhuh, I would say "go for it."

 

All your fingers in working order, Blaise?

 

I see your website is as active as ever.

 

Whoa. Srs racism up in that thar blog.

 

If there were ever a reason to get one.

 

1. I hate that fucking song.
2. I bet they could've done an epic cover of Wham's "Last Christmas" with iPads and iPhones.
3. I really hate "Feliz Navidad."

 

Back on topic: how hot do iPads run if you use them for a couple of hours?

 

A bit warm, after I played a two hour movie on it, but not as hot like how those old macbooks and laptops burning your thighs after an hour.

 

You could've go into the mail app and dropped
him a note, if you were really intent in giving it back.

Just sayin'.

 

And you called me a knacker.

/me is enjoying his new projector which he got earlier