A Tech Review? Really?

I am not a lover or a consumer of technology. I just don't understand it. If it weren't for my technophile hubby, I truly would still be in the dark ages, before cell phones, the internet and GPS. Wingnut is a Mac addict through and through. And while I did not allow him to stand in those ridiculous lines waiting to purchase an iPhone two years ago, we do own three of them now. We own two desk top Macs and a laptop, plus, Wingnut was able to convince his place of work to purchase all Mac laptops as they can boot into Windows as well as the Mac platform (OS something or other).

Our laptop has been running slowly of late and Wingnut is impatient with glitches. He had been chomping at the bit with excitement over the iPad. I absolutely refused to let him pre-order one. I could not see pre-ordering a brand new technology without getting my hands on it and trying it out first. So while I won the pre-order battle, I lost the war in a big way. Wingnut got up early last Saturday and stood in a line, an actual line, to purchase his iPad, sight unseen. He called me from line several times.

1st call: "It's not too bad. They have two lines. One for pre-orders and a second for the rest of us losers."

2nd call: "It was a bad idea to bring Lil' Wingnut with me. He had to go to the bathroom. I lost about four places in line. Sigh."

3rd call: "I'm on my way home. Yes, I got it. Actually I got two. I'll explain why when I get home."

Two! I was livid. I didn't want two. I didn't even want one. What was he thinking! When he got home he explained he thought I'd want one, especially since he travels so much and would be taking the iPad with him when he left. Whatever. I have three other computers I can use. What do I need an iPad for?

Sheepishly, he charged it up, loaded software onto it, and showed me how it worked. I spent the rest of the afternoon using my iPad. The longer I used it, the more my irritation dissipated. By the end of the day, I was in love.

The iPad is much smaller than I had anticipated. It really looks like a bigger, thinner version of an iPhone without the phone. It works very much like the iPhone(without the phone), a laptop, and a Kindle all wrapped into one. I've been using it like a laptop; checking email, Facebook, and blog reading. I plan on using it like a Kindle and have downloaded several free books from iBook and the Gutenberg Project. They had some of my very favorites; from Shakespeare to Austen; Dickens to Chesterton. You can't beat free.

While it doesn't have a wonderfully useful keyboard, I can comment on Facebook and blogs fairly easily. Unless we get a bluetooth keyboard to go with our iPads, I will not be writing blog posts using my iPad. It is much less cumbersome than even a laptop. Amazingly easy to use, I caught my littlest two exploring my new toy while I was making dinner. They were able to handle it with ease and had already figured out how to play games on it.

What I love: compact size, a cinch to use, great for checking email, reading blogs, updating Facebook, internet browsing, watching Netflix(yes, there's an app for that!), downloading and reading books, playing "Words with Friends" with my buddy from A Wink and A Smile, wonderfully long battery life (I used mine for three days before needing to charge it).

What I wish was better: lacks Flash Player, keyboard isn't all that easy to use, blogging is more difficult and I need to be in HTML to edit my blog

What can I say. Wingnut is a brilliant man and he loves me. What did I ever do before I had an iPad???

P.S. Since I'm not a techie, I'm sure I didn't cover everything folks might want to know about the iPad. If you want to know about something specific, leave a comment and I'll try to answer and if I'm unable, I'll ask Wingnut.