Apple iPad Delivers on Entertainment, but Lacks Productivity Punch

The display dominates the device, with a wide black bezel surrounding its oleophobic (oil-resistant) display, designed to minimize fingerprints. Even so, after just an hour of use, the display was covered with smudge marks. The iPad measures just 0.5 inch thick, but I had some difficulty handling it over any extended period. At 1.5 pounds, and with dimensions of 9.6 by 7.5 by 0.5 inches, it was too heavy for me to hold in both hands for very long, let alone in one hand, as sometimes felt natural to do. The weight is a significant consideration if you plan on using the iPad as an e-reader.

Other e-readers, like the Amazon Kindle 2, the Spring Design Alex eReader, and the Amazon Kindle DX, are much lighter and permit a much more comfortable reading experience.

Like the iPhone before it, the iPad lacks a physical keyboard--and the built-in on-screen keyboard of the iPad could stand improvement. The unit's physical size meant that my relatively small hands couldn't reach across the expanse of the unit's on-screen vertical keyboard, a problem exacerbated when I turned the unit to horizontal mode. To type on the device, I needed to place it flat on a surface, not a particularly ergonomic arrangement.

The keyboard lacks the iPhone's letter magnification when you press a key, a visual cue that I missed immensely. It also lacks the haptic (vibration) feedback common to Android phones. (You do get a click noise, if you leave the volume on). Though I'm a fairly speedy typist on my iPhone keyboard, I found this keyboard uncomfortable and easy to hit the wrong key on--barely adequate for light typing, and intolerable for anything of length. (Apple will soon have a $69 keyboard dock accessory, however.)

Like the iPhone before it, the iPad has a minimalist design and a smooth, aluminum back. At the bottom of the device are the dock connector and the speaker grille. The sole buttons are the Home button (centrally situated beneath the display), the volume rocker on the side, and a screen lock button above that (instead of a mute button, as found on the iPhone). The volume rocker and the screen lock feel sharp and cheaply made, in contrast to about the rest of the iPad's otherwise premium design.

The iPad connects wirelessly via 802.11a/b/g/n; the 3G versions will have a micro-SIM card for use with any wireless data service. (Though the 3G iPad will support wireless data, it won't support wireless phone or SMS functionality.) The iPad also has Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, for use with both a Bluetooth keyboard and headphone devices.

The unit contains Apple's 1GHz A4 processor system-in-a-chip. Performance was fairly zippy as I navigated among apps and screens, but data transfers to and from my iPad--connected to the computer via iTunes--felt poky on my main Windows Vista system.

Video performance impressed across multiple apps, including the video player, HTML 5 Web video, and third-party apps like the ABC Player (in horizontal, full-screen mode). Still, I had mixed experience with YouTube videos in both standard definition and high definition (it was unclear whether this was due to a network latency issue or to the iPad YouTube app, though video played more smoothly at a lower resolution on my iPhone 3GS at the same time). For example, when I played the Avatar movie trailer in high def, it stopped playing while it loaded in the background and then caught up. Disney's official HD trailers had the same problem. Once the HD video loaded, it played smoothly; but loading was a bottleneck. More-standard fare, like YouTube content such as Miley Cyrus's "The Climb Official Music Video" (shown in HQ mode) exhibited notable pixelation.

Graphics designed for the iPad--in particular, graphic novels from IDW and Marvel--and the realistic, fluid page movements in iBooks looked stunning; so did games designed for iPad, and high-resolution photos. But the iPad's attempts to scale iPhone apps to fit its larger screen fell short. Text and graphics in these apps looked blurry and were filled with artifacts; the effect was much like what you get when you try to view standard-definition video on a high-def screen.

Another oddity: The iPad has a single speaker, at the bottom of the unit--not a great arrangement if you want to lean it on your lap, since that action will obstruct the speaker. Though the iPad's speaker sounds better than the ones on, say, the iPhone or the iPod Touch, that's not saying much. Audio lacked bass and depth; and the lack of a stereo option feels was disappointing.

Another hardware omissionis the absence of a camera, which means that you can't use the unit for videoconferencing. There's no multitasking either, though that's rumored to be coming in a software update. And you don't get any storage space; if you want to view images from a camera, you're only recourse is to buy the $30 SD Card dock adapter or the $30 USB port adapter. Unfortunately, neither of these options allow you to use the iPad in a way that mimics a more versatile netbook. Also, the device's inability to accept a USB flash memory drive and to access any of an array of file types is unfortunate and hampers its ability to compete with less expensive, slightly bulkier, but more full-featured netbooks.

A final notable omission is Apple's lack of Adobe Flash support, which means that the user can't view content from as-is services like Hulu and the full YouTube catalog on the iPad. Though some sites are switching to HTML 5, the iPad's lack of the far more common Flash format is disappointing.