Thetownend.com

ive gotta get a new laptop, but am getting an urge to get one of those i pads, any feedback please :D

not sure this is a match day thread?!

I guess that depends on your view, I mean, laptops are nice but so are iPads; The thing is, which one is better?  I guess there's only one way to find out........ FIIIIIIIGHT!

A laptop is a computer, an iPad is a marketing ploy to separate fashionistas with more money than sense from the former. Or put another way, it's a bit like a smartphone. But you can't make/receive calls on it. And it's too bulky to put in your pocket. So it's like a rubbish smartphone, or a rubbish laptop.

But you do get free admittance to the Cult of Jobs and other sophisticates in polonecks will admire you in coffee shops as they too struggle to do anything useful on the thing

:clap:

Sooner or later the chick in the ad is going to drop her iPad whilst whizzing around on that Vespa.

Pointless piece of cack.

Unlike everything else that is currently Apple, Mr D.  :)

An iPad looks like it would make a better Frisbee than a laptop. Something to consider should you be caught Frisbee-less during the summer.

my bro in law has one and has said is just a big ipod touch. It has no cdrom so if you want to add cd's to itunes you need a laptop to sync it.

ive heard enough, laptop it is :clap: :D

You'd have to be a fool to choose an Ipad over a Windows laptop.

Agree with everyone else an iPad seems the most pointless thing ever. It's sub-niching BMW style (create a car to fill a need no one has). It's just a big iPhone, but without flash (no youtube etc), without the ability to phone and without the ability to use a mobile network.

Like PaulD says, it's marketing, very, very good marketing in my opinion, but nothing more.

I hope you've posted that from an achingly trendy coffee shop on an iDevice of some form. Bit warm for polo necks though isn't it? :D

It depends what you want to do. No doubt 'touch browsing' is great but it's probably the best feature of the iPad.

I read a review which said it was good, but it doesn't excel in one single task.

You can get a netbook for half the price which can do more.

It'd be rude not to in this fly by the seat of your pants techno-driven world we now live in.

Soon as I find somewhere to plug it in anyway.

[url width=400 height=295]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v728/sussex_red/macintosh.jpg[/url]

To help you choose

http://tinyurl.com/ydw7mbm

I'm Granny Smith, and Apple was my idea...

The iPad is a sub-netbook. If you want to read e-books, check your email, browse the web, watch a video then there isn't anything better out there. It's got nothing to do with marketing, they just designed a product to do specific tasks in the best way possible and they succeeded. That's why they're selling them as fast as they can make them.

I've never understood the point of netbooks, they're just expensive crap laptops.

You'd be better off with a good book. Technology, pah!

It's all about the pricing though jonny. It's price makes it a Laptop rival, not a sub-netbook. Sure they'll tell you it is (that's part of the clever marketing you refute), but at £500 you have to consider what that £500 could get you. 2 netbooks or a pretty good laptop. Both of which do more than an iPad. Although i suppose neither a laptop or a netbook also cover the "I work in bricklane doing Nu Media and shit yeah" crowd. :)

I only assume you meant to post something so ironic to make us laugh.

iPads are over £500 for the cheapest one. Want additional storage space? Another £200 for an extra 16gb which is scandalous! You can't upgrade them and the specs are no better than a netbook in terms of memory and processor power.

The point is, a £300 netbook can do everything this can, just in different ways. Or even an ipod touch or an iphone. It's just a bigger, heavier and more expensive version of these devices.

It's not the revolution Apple want everyone to think it is. Sure, it makes the tablet computer cool, mainstream etc. but is it better than a smartphone or our current computers? Do we really need it?

Don't know where you got those figures from. Cheapest is £420 with 16Gb, then £499 for 32Gb and £599 for 64Gb.


As I said, it does limited things better and some people are willing to pay for it. You might not need it but plenty of people do, millions already in fact. Give it six months and you'll be singing the praises of the HTC Droid Pad or whatever they will call it.

Jonny, you slate a netbook stating it is an expensive crap laptop, but then the iPad is more expensive. Can you not see the irony? That's all I was pointing out.

Do I need it though? I already have a laptop and a pc. I'm sure most of us here do to (as we're posting on an internet message board). If I need a new laptop/pc am I really going to consider an iPad as an alternative. The answer could be yes if I only want to check emails and browse the net etc. But that's why the expensive crap laptop [netbook] exists too.

It's a stylish product, a really good one. It's just very expensive. If people have the money and want it then that's their prerogative. I can see why they would too, for example I'd probably pay extra for a VW over the equivalent Skoda. But the iPad is not the best thing out there in terms of functionality.

Yes but cool gadgety gadgets are fun,if I had any expendable Id get one.

Im easily sucked in by media hype though 8)

Yes that's what my last point was.

In actual truth if I had loads of spare money I'd probably get one too.

Exactly. It has to be judged on price v functionality then compared to the competition. And it is being.

If it had a sub netbook price (we are talking < £200) and I'd be interested. But its more than twice the price and so its never likely to be cheap enough.

If I had a spare £600 or even a spare £400, there is no way I'd buy an iPad. No flash player, can't burn cd's, can't make phone calls, bet you can't even hard wire it(can't be arsed to check) tied into that awful piece of software that is iTunes. Return to Apple if it goes wrong and not see it for weeks(I'm the fix it myself brigade) No thanks, give me a lappie any time.

Although I agree if I had plenty of disposable ie won the lottery, then one would be fun to mess with, but I would think the novelty would soon wear thin given the lack of funtionality

Oh and shady although a book is good, without technology and forums such as this, you would have been legging it all the way to the CG for your play off final ticket

Good call STFC in Bournemouth, hope you're sinking a few San Miguels tonight. I've  learnt more from a good book than all this technological malarky has been worthwhile. Maybe it's because I wasn't brought up among computers. I'm calling by yours in a few weeks hopefully.

What about an iBook? ;)

Have they got any Dostoyevsky or Solzhenitsyn, that'll do me

Looking forward to a visit as long as it's the weekend. I wasn't bought up among computers either, and I'm a lot older than you, it's been a learning curve, but a lot of fun

@Si, that's one of the main uses of the ipad so I believe, an ebook reader?

Who did they play for?

Cliched the title with Rubin Kazan, great front two  ;)

That's the same as saying you wouldn't buy a Harley as; it hasn't got 4 wheels, there is no roof, can't take 4 passengers and doesn't have enough boot space. Well no shit sherlock, it ain't a car. The same as an iPad isn't a laptop.

But if you look at the original thread title...

I think I answered that. If you want a laptop buy a laptop. If you want an iPad buy an iPad.

They do different things and you can't really compare them like for like.

What can an Ipad do that a laptop can't?

make cups of tea

Couldn't a Thai bride do that?

Weigh under a kg.
Last for 10 hours.
Touch screen.
Not burn your leg.
Run silently.
Double as a frisbee.
Run apps.
Usable eBook reader.
Not crash all the time.
Free OS upgrades.
High resale value.
Power up in seconds.
Low maintenance.

In fairness the flash issue is actually an important one, because it's not just flash video support. Things like seat bookers can use flash too.

That's quite impressive. Its the only thing from your list I'd see as an advantage over a laptop/netbook.

Each to their own of course. You pays you money and makes your choice.

Flash is an issue but it doesn't seem to be putting many people off. Plus there is over 100m iOS devices out there now which is a sizeable number of people to not cater for, so there will be more and more sites moving away from Flash.

If I wanted a motorbike, I'd buy Japanese, not that American rubbish

So back on topic for Woolster.

Get a laptop if you want more functionality than just web browsing, emails and iTunes applications get an iPad if you like flashy expensive toys :)

What is iPad?
iPad is thin,
iPad is beautiful,
iPad goes anywhere,
and lasts all day,
there’s no right way,
or wrong way,
it’s crazy powerful,
it’s magical,
you already know how to use it,
it’s 200,000 apps and counting,
all the world’s websites in your hands,
it’s video, photos,
more books than you could read in a lifetime,
it’s already a revolution,
and it’s only just begun.

Does the advert say it's crazy powerful?

I fucking want one now just because they used the that term (I'm actually deadly serious).

Only the US version. The UK version actually says "Amazingly powerful".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2BvVcSkNkA

boooo, I don't want it now.

Shouldn't they be more correct and say, "It's all the world's websites in your hands apart from YouTube or any of the countless others that use Flash."

I love some Apple stuff, but their unreplaceable battery policy makes me seethe with rage. So fucking out of order and looking at the iPad it seems the same.

I think there is an Apple specific youtube so you don't need full flash or something? But basically yeah.

Why would you need to replace the battery if it lasts for 10 hours?

Said the keen fisherman to the eagerly snapping carp. :)

The lack of Flash never causes me any problems. There's a YouTube app plus a beta HTML5 version of their website and most of the other big video sites have app's as well. Though personally I hate Flash and the sooner it's wiped out the better.

Jonny, are you an official apple spokesman?

you fucking sound like one.

Don't buy either

Get yourself a nice Mac Book

[url width=400 height=602]http://markspeed.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/ipad-vs-blu-tack1.jpg[/url]

That's genius Dave.

because a battery has a life expectancy of x amount of charge cycles?

not a problem for me though, my laptop battery looks like its going to outlast the actual laptop!

My laptop battery is fucked.

Isn't there some sort of trick where you can put it in the freezer to revive it a little?

I think you're confusing laptop batteries with elderly relatives. And even then it's not so much "revive them a little" as "hide them from the authorities until a suitable moment for disposal"

How cool would that be ?  (to paraphrase 'Mock the Week')

Quite cool use of an iPad that isn't using it as a frisbee or using it in Starbucks while on an iPhone sitting next to pauld. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OLP4nbAVA4

If the Ipad had a camera he needn't have wasted all that time.