I just had my first encounter and user experience with the Apple iPad, I know that this item are rare here in Manila, and Apple haven't started their official and local distribution in our Apple stores, but many stores are now offering the iPad with a big difference of the price from the original retail price in US market. So read below my funny experience below.
The story
I missed one chance to see and use an Apple iPad after the day it was launched in the USA, one pinoy here got it first and brought it in an event, I was planning to attend, but decided to go home, during the event, it was a grand entrance for the user carrying his iPad. Then I hear stories from people who tried it and learned that they love the iPad and it is much more different from a tablet or laptop. A new term will be created to the new generation computers, like the iPad, I think the better term for this is - notePAD.
The glimpse
Then after attending the Pinoyblog fest, my seatmates told me that Abe of Yugatech.com brought his iPad, then after a few inches away, I saw him using it and hooked on a event's wifi internet. I saw a glimpse on how it runs and how it is supposed to use it. I was planning to approach Abe that day, but decided to listen to the photography seminar inside the room of Pinoyblog fest.
photo by Yugatech.com , read his personal reviews here
The touch
Finally! after days of waiting, I met Abe at the Inquirer and Samsung FACE OFF Fashion show and launch of Samsung 3D LED TV. At the cocktail table, I approach him with other fellow bloggers, and asked if i can take a look on his iPad, he took it out from his messenger bag and saw that it was like a giant iPhone or Ipad touch. It was light, shiny and my hands are having a hard time to use its own brain to identify if I'm holding a mobile phone or a laptop. The screen is much smaller to the screen of my Compaq C500 laptop, but the visuals are awesome with cute big widgets or buttons, and a lock button on top to press if you want the iPad run on stand by mode. I learned from our conversation that people who plans to buy iPad should try first using touch screen phones, I agree on that idea, because using touch screen phones is like a training ground on how to use a touch screen unit the right way and how to take care of it.
the issue
The iPad runs okay on local wifi networks, but it sometimes fail on quad band wifi router, I'm not sure if i heard it correctly, that our country distributes a good wifi router hardware and the iPad won't have any problems connecting. I'm not sure if a Belkin router will make it connect easy, because I'm hearing news that other models have difficulties in connecting your phones via wifi. The touch sensors are cool and easy to use, just like an ordinary phone, the screen flips as you change its position. There's a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, but you need to buy that and not included in the package, if you are planning to have a heavy typing jobs using the iPad, but I see that iPad is good for surfing the net and read emails or blogs. There are no news yet if they are planning to have a camera installed in your Ipad, it will look weird if you use a VGA camera of the iPad, for the front camera is accepted, as it will be used for web conference or web video chat. I don't want to see people carrying their iPad and have a group photo session hahaha.weird di ba.
Hope I can have my own personal reviews in the future. I asked the Apple PR here and said that there are no official dates yet for the official launch, but I heard that the launch might be around late May and early June, and the Apple iPad with 3G will not be available for the moment and it will have a lock out with a telco and introduce a new micro sim only for the iPad, as I heard Abe told me.
so there you go, maybe in the future the Philippines will be the Apple iPad country heeheh.
thanks to Yugatech.com for the iPad experience :)
