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  • Introduction

  • Front

  • Back

  • Sides

  • Size Comparisons

  • In the Box

  • Handling

  • Screen

  • Indoor & Outdoor Use

  • Controls

  • Connectivity

  • Battery Life

  • Reading Books

  • Buying Books

  • eBook Formats

  • Newspapers & Magazines

  • eBook Battery Life

  • Music & Audio Controls

  • Music & Audio Management

  • Music & Audio Formats

  • Music & Audio Battery Life

  • Video Controls

  • Video Management

  • Video Formats

  • Internet Video

  • Video Battery Life

  • Email

  • Web Browsing

  • Internet Apps

  • Other Internet Features

  • Device & Specs

  • Screen

  • Battery

  • eReader

  • Internet

  • Device & Specs

  • Screen

  • Battery

  • eReader

  • Internet

  • Device & Specs

  • Screen

  • Battery

  • eReader

  • Internet

  • Conclusion

  • Introduction
  • Front
  • Back
  • Sides
  • Size Comparisons
  • In the Box
  • Handling
  • Screen
  • Indoor & Outdoor Use
  • Controls
  • Connectivity
  • Battery Life
  • Reading Books
  • Buying Books
  • eBook Formats
  • Newspapers & Magazines
  • eBook Battery Life
  • Music & Audio Controls
  • Music & Audio Management
  • Music & Audio Formats
  • Music & Audio Battery Life
  • Video Controls
  • Video Management
  • Video Formats
  • Internet Video
  • Video Battery Life
  • Email
  • Web Browsing
  • Internet Apps
  • Other Internet Features
  • Device & Specs
  • Screen
  • Battery
  • eReader
  • Internet
  • Device & Specs
  • Screen
  • Battery
  • eReader
  • Internet
  • Device & Specs
  • Screen
  • Battery
  • eReader
  • Internet
  • Conclusion

Introduction

Front

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Back

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Sides

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Size Comparisons

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In the Box

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As well as the iPad itself, you get:
* USB cable
* 10W USB power adapter
* Basic documentation

No video or other cables are included in the package.

Handling

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The iPad is a sizeable device, but it fits well into the hand, with the natural grip being with one hand underneath the device or holding it by the edge and the other touching the screen. Although it is pretty thin, it is heavier than it looks (at 1.5lbs/680g for the WiFi model we looked at, or 1.6lbs/730g for the 3G model), and it can be something of a strain to hold it for long periods. If you are trying to watch a movie or read a book, you will need to find something to lean it on, and there is no built-in stand. Fortunately, there are plenty of cases that include stands that prop the device up for more comfortable viewing or reading.

Screen

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The screen of the iPad is very impressive: at a sizeable 9.7 inches diagonally and with a resolution of 1024 by 768, it offers a good resolution and excellent overall performance

Indoor & Outdoor Use

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A portable device like the iPad is going to be used both indoors and outdoors, so the screen should be readable in all situations. However, we found that there were a number of issues here: the screen reflects more light than we like to see, and the backlit screen loses contrast in bright sunlight. This means that you are going to see reflections in the screen from lights, and that the screen looks very pale in direct sunlight.

Controls

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There are only 4 physical buttons on the iPad: a power button on the top, a silent lock and volume buttons on the right side and a home button on the front of the body below the display. Everything else is controlled through on-screen buttons, including a keypad that appears at the bottom of the screen to enter text. We found that this was very responsive and easy to use, allowing for fast text entry. However, it is not as fast as a physical keyboard because there is no positive feedback to let you know when key has been pressed.

The controls on the top right side of the iPad body: volume, lock and power.

Connectivity

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There are two different models of the iPad: the WiFi model offers only WiFi connectivity, while the 3G model offers HSDPA 3G data connections to the AT&T network in the USA. Internationally, the iPad is sold with access to a national carrier, and the device is sold unlocked: it will work with any GSM network that runs on the frequencies it supports (850, 900, 1800 and 1900MHz for GSM/EDGE and 850, 1900 and 2100Mhz for UMTS/HSDPA).

Here we see a Lightning dock in its natural habitat.

All iPad models also offer Bluetooth support (version 2.1), but do not support the full range of Bluetooth profiles: you can use Bluetooth keyboards or headphones that support the A2DP or AVRCP profiles, but not headsets that use the Hands-Free profile (HFP) or profiles that transfer files over Bluetooth connections.

Battery Life

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We found mixed results for the iPad in our battery tests: although it excelled in the tests for playing an audio book, it had less impressive results for the video and book reading tests. In the audio test, ti kept running for 24 hours, and still had 82% of the battery left. This means that it could keep going for about 16 days. This is presumably because the big screen is the main power draw, and the device automatically turns the screen off when playing back audio after 60 seconds. The battery life reading an eBook and playing a video was less impressive: the iPad lasted 5 hours and 37 minues reading an eBook, and 6 hours and 42 minutes when playing back a video.

Reading Books

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The iPad is easy to use when it comes to reading books, with the iBooks application offering a bookshelf-like interface that shows the covers of the books on the device. To open a book, you simply tap the cover. When reading, turning the page can be done with either a swipe of the finger or a single touch on the right side of the screen. A similar swipe or touch on the left side moves to the previous page. At the top of the screen are a number of controls for screen brightness, font and text size, searching and adding bookmarks to a page.

The iBooks program offers a range of controls for font and text size

Buying Books

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It is no big surprise that the iPad is closely linked with Apples own iBooks software and online store, which we found to be easy to use. To access the store, you just touch the Store button in the iBooks application, and select the book you want. It is then downloaded to the device, with the whole process taking less than a minute. Previews of books are available, which offer access to the first 25 pages or so. Apple offers a decent selection of books in their online store, but the selection is not as wide as some. See here for more analysis of Apple and other online stores.

Books can be purchased on the iPad through the iTunes store

The iPad does offer access to other book stores, though: downloadable clients are available for Amazon’s Kindle store, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Kobo, Google Books and other stores, all through free software that is available from the App store. At the time of writing, the Sony Reader store is not available because of a dispute between Sony and Apple on who gets paid for what.

eBook Formats

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Newspapers & Magazines

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Publishers have only recently started offering magazine and newspaper content on the iPad, and each magazine or newspaper is offered as an individual App, not as content in the iBooks application. This means that publishers have to write their own App to publish on the iPad, and the experience of each is somewhat different. You can’t buy a subscription through the standard Apple store system like you can on the Kindle, although most of the content is currently being offered for free. The NY Times, for instance, offers an App that carries the entire content of the newspaper when you register, which is free at present (they have announced plans to charge for it later in 2011). The New Yorker magazine offers a free app, but each issue has to be purchased individually at $4.99 from within the App.

The New York Times is available on the iPad through their own app

eBook Battery Life

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Music & Audio Controls

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The iPod software that the iPad uses has a simple, straightforward interface that puts all the playback controls at your fingertips. Play/pause and the skip keys have their own dedicated buttons within the software. Fast-forward and rewind can be done either by holding the skip buttons, or you simply tap the point on the slider you want to skip to. This touch-to-skip-to functionality is simple and straightforward to use. The 'Now Playing' screen will display a few tidbits of information about the song currently playing. A song's title, artist, album, and position in the playlist will all be visible, along with the cover art from the song's album. If you have a shuffle or repeat feature enabled, there will be a small symbol displayed at the bottom of the screen.

The iPod app shows the cover art while playing music

As with other iPods, the iPad equalizer won't let you customize levels. It will, however, provide you with 22 presets: acoustic, bass booster, bass reducer, classical, dance, deep, electronic, flat, hip hop, jazz, latin, loudness, lounge, piano, pop, R & B, Rock, small speakers, spoken word, treble booster, treble reducer, and vocal booster. We're guessing one of these probably covers whatever type of music you are into, but it would be nice to be able to do more tweaking.

Music & Audio Management

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In the list of media on the device, navigating around your media library is done by using touch controls to drag the menu up or down. The faster you flick the dragging gesture, the faster the menu will scroll. This allows for very quick menu navigation in relatively short menus. For really long menus, use the alphabet scroller on the right side of the screen. Using this you can jump to a specific letter. With just these two tools, browsing is quick and easy.

Audio files can be sorted by title, artist, album, genre or composer

The iPad will let you sort your songs by playlist, artist, album, compilation, song, genre, or composer. Audio books and podcasts are also kept separately from other audio files. This is a good list of sort criteria, offering a good deal of granularity. We would've liked to see a few more options, however, such as the ability to sort by rating, or the date a song was added to the device. You can search for particular song names, artist or album titles.

Playlist creation is handled much the same way as on every Apple device, which means it's absurdly easy. Once you have created a playlist, you can select the files to play from the full list, or search for particular songs, artists, albums, genres or composers.

Music & Audio Formats

Music & Audio Battery Life

Video Controls

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When playing back videos through the iPod App, a handful of controls are available. These are normally hidden, but a tap of the screen brings up a semi-transparent window that has fast forward, pause and rewind controls. Below these is a slider that can be used control the volume level. At the top of the screen is the Done button (which takes you back to the media management screen) and a slider that allows you to scrub to a particular part of the video. This shows the time remaining in the video at the right side, and also quickly skips to the requested point in the video, making it easy to visually search for a particular point by scrubbing through until you see it appear.

Video Management

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Videos are managed in the same way as audio files, with the iPad offering a number of ways to sort and sequence video files. In the list of media on the device, navigating around your media library is done by using touch controls to drag the menu up or down. The faster you flick the dragging gesture, the faster the menu will scroll. This allows for very quick menu navigation in relatively short menus. For really long menus, use the alphabet scroller on the right side of the screen. Using this you can jump to a specific letter. With just these two tools, browsing is quick and easy.

The gallery is used to navigate videos, and only offers thumbnails

The iPad will let you sort your videos by playlist, artist, album, compilation, song, genre, or composer. iTunes classifies video files into three groups: mo. This is a good list of sort criteria, offering a good deal of granularity. We would've liked to see a few more options, however, such as the ability to sort by rating, or the date a song was added to the device. You can search for particular song names, artist or album titles.

Playlist creation is handled much the same way as on every Apple device, which means it's absurdly easy. Once you have created a playlist, you can select the files to play from the full list, or search for particular songs, artists, albums, genres or composers.

Video Formats

Internet Video

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The iPad offers support for watching streaming videos in two ways: through the Safari browser (which supports QuickTime streaming video) or through the YouTube client, which only supports the Google YouTube streaming video service. Flash video and other formats are not directly supported, but the iPad has become so popular that many streaming video services are now offering iPad-friendly versions of their sites, or are offering Apps that provide direct access to their streaming video content (such as the Hulu Plus App, which provides access to recent TV shows and movies for $7.99 a month).

This approach means that most of the commercial video hosting services are supported, but that content on individual pages may not be. So, it is easy to browse TV shows through Hulu or Youtube clips, but you may not be able to access streaming video content from blogs or other sites that directly host their own content or use other less-popular services.

Video Battery Life

Email

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The iPad offers a fully featured email client that supports a wide range of email standards and services, including POP, IMAP, Exchange, Gmail, AOL and Yahoo. We found that this application was easy to configure and use, and provided a good range of features that make it suitable for heavy emailers and corporate users. Emails are easy to search and type emails on the large on-screen keyboard, although serious emailers will want to invest in a separate keyboard. However, there is no way to sort emails other than by received order, although you can place emails into folders, depending on the support that the service offers for this.

The iPad email app is basic, but adequate for most users

One thing to note, however, is that it is not possible to replace the built in mail client with another: Apple takes a dim view of applications that it sees as duplicating or replacing the built-in functions of the iPad. Some more specialist email Apps are available, but there are no Apps that replace the built-in App.

Web Browsing

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Apple’s own Safari web browser is a powerful, fully featured program that is pretty much identical to the desktop version in use. It offers an extensive set of touch controls, including the ability to scroll down a page with a flick of the finger, zoom in with a pinch and open a new page with a touch. Multiple browser windows are also supported, although the browser does not store the pages: when you switch between the pages, it has the reload the web page from scratch, which can mean that you loose your place if you are within a framed web page (such as Apples own iPad online user guide). Extensive bookmarking support is also offered, with the ability to create folders of bookmarks for easy reading. The opening screen of the browser can also be configured to show thumbnails of up to 9 web pages that can be accessed with a touch (Apple calls them Web Clips)

The iPad boasts a fully featured Safari web browser

Internet Apps

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One of the selling points of the iPad is the access to the Apple App Store, which offers over four hundred thousand Apps, including both free and paid products. There is a huge range of products available, ranging from games to utilities to business programs. From fart apps to drug desk guides, as Apple themselves say, “There’s an app for that”.

But, while there is a huge range of Apps available, access to the App store has some restrictions. Apps have to be approved by Apple before they can be offered (including free ones), and Apple is sometimes somewhat capricious about this process, occasionally turning down Apps for reasons ranging from copying the functions of the built-in software to obscenity. However, the huge success of the iPad means that you get to pick and choose between apps, with most offering a trial or free version with limited features. The price of apps varies from 99 cents up to $30-$40.

Other Internet Features

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Device & Specs

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These two devices could not be more physically different. The iPad is a large, heavy device, while the Kindle is a small, light device. Which you prefer depends on your priorities: the portability of the Kindle or the big screen and functions of the iPad.

Screen

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The two devices take different approaches when it comes to the screen. The iPad offers a big, bright LCD screen, while the Kindle has a smaller e-ink screen that has no backlight. The result is a different set of strengths and weaknesses, with the iPad offering a bigger screen that looks great indoors, but poor outside. The Kindle, however, offers a screen that is sharp and readable in everything from very dim light to direct tropical sun.

Battery

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Both devices include large batteries, but the iPad has an all-round much shorter battery life for reading an eBook, because the big screen uses much more power than the small passive e-ink screen of the Kindle. In our tests reading an eBook, the iPad lasted just 5 hours and 37 minutes, while the Kindle lasted over 24 hours. If you are close to a power source, this may not be an issue, but the iPad is going to be a dead weight if you are going anywhere without a daily power source. The only exception to this was when playing back audio, where the iPad lasted much longer than the Kindle: we estimate that the iPad could keep playing audio for up to 16 days, while the Kindle could only manage about 3.

eReader

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Both devices offer a range of functions as Ereaders and media players, but the Kindle is more focussed towards eBooks than other media. It can play audio files, but offers only limited storage (3GB) and lacks any sort of playlist support: you can only play files in alphabetical order. The iPad, by contrast, has extensive eBook support (through the iBook application) and can play back both audio and video, with an extensive set of features for finding, sorting and categorizing media through the iPod App.

Internet

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Both devices come in different versions with different levels of Internet access, including those with 3G cellular modems and WiFi only devices (which are the versions we tested). They offer different levels of use for these connections, though, with the Kindle offering book downloads and an "experimental" (translation: very simple and unsupported) web browser. The iPad offers extensive email, browsing and media streaming features that put the Internet at your fingertips, including support for Internet video and audio services such as Rdio, Pandora and Hulu.

Device & Specs

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Screen

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Both devices offer LCD screens that work in much the same way. This means they both have the same advantages (wide contrast, visibility in low light) and disadvantages, such as they way they fade in direct sunlight. The iPad performed slightly better in daylight and had a very slightly wider contrast range, but neither device is really suited to reading by the pool.

Battery

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Both devices had enough juice for a short commute, but the iPad lasted longer than the Nook Color in our tests. So, the Apple device would be more suited for use on a longer trip or if you regularly travel away from a power source.

eReader

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The Nook is more suited to on the road use, because of its size. But the bigger screen of the iPad will appeal to many, and its ability to replace a laptop may make the extra size worth it.

Internet

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The iPad is the clear winner as an internet device, offering a much wider set of Internet features on the device itself, and allowing for much more expandability through the App Store.

Device & Specs

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Screen

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The iPad’s and Daily’s screens are very different: the former is an LCD and the latter is an eInk screen. if you’re in the market for one or the other, this is an easy choice. If you’re don’t mind the LCD, it’s hard to make a case for eInk. The iPad’s screen is large, crisp, color, and supports video.

Battery

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The Reader Daily is the clear winner in our battery tests, lasting much longer than the iPad when reading an eBook. The iPad did win when playing an audio file, though: we predict that it will be able to keep playing audio for many days, while the Reader Daily can only manage 19 hours.

eReader

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Both devices offer a good eBook reading experience, but the Daily is the better pick if that is all you want to do: it is smaller, lighter and easier to carry around. But if you want to do more than read eBooks, the iPad is the best pick.

Internet

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This isn’t really a contest. The iPad’s app store and browsing experience totally blow the Daily out of the water. Apple’s app store contains millions and millions of apps, while the Daily only has access to a handful. Additionally, the iPad’s browser is significantly more natural. If online features matter to you, the iPad is the clear choice.

Conclusion

Performance

The iPad is the 800-lb gorilla of the tablet world, despite being one of the newest devices on the block. It is the front-runner for a reason, though: it is the easiest to use, most fully featured tablet and e-reader available, with a clear, bright screen and good battery life. It comes with access to Apples own iTunes store, but support for Amazon, Barnes & Noble and many other online e-book and media stores can be added quickly and easily.

However, it is bigger, bulkier, more awkward to use and has a shorter battery life than dedicated e-book readers such as the Amazon Kindle that use e-ink screens. If all you want is to read e-books, you might be better off with a dedicated device. But if you want to read books, watch videos, listen to music and access the Internet, the choice is down to the iPad or an Android tablet, and the iPad is by far the easier to use and more flexible device, as long as you don’t mind living within Apple’s restrictions.

Screen Performance

We were extremely impressed with the quality of the iPad screen, which produced good contrast ratios between black and white and clean, bright colors. We were less impressed with the reflectance of the screen, though: the top layer is somewhat shiny and reflects more light than we are comfortable with. The screen also does not hold up well outdoors, though: in bright daylight and direct sunlight, the screen becomes pale and difficult to read, so it would not be a good pick for reading books by the pool on a tropical vacation. But the screen looks great indoors and under more moderate lighting.

Meet the tester

Richard Baguley

Richard Baguley

Contributor

@@rbaguley

Richard Baguley is a veteran writer who has written about technology ranging from Alphabet to Zip file utilities. He has contributed to pretty much every major tech publication, including Amiga Format Magazine, PC World, Wired, CNET, Toms Guide, Forbes, and many others. He lives in the Boston metro area with his wife, dog, and an indeterminate number of cats.

See all of Richard Baguley's reviews

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