<p>My dear spouse gave me an iPad for our anniversary and I am fast falling in love.</p>
<p>We are at our little summer rental that offers limited cable TV but does have Wifi. I am watching the US Open streaming live on my little iPad and it is arguably as clear as it would be on my television at home AND I can watch matches on a number of courts rather than the one designated as “important” by ESPN or the Tennis Channel.</p>
<p>I streamed the movie “Bright Star” off of Netflix when it rained the other day. I know that there are many other things that I can do with this baby and I am going to have a great deal of fun figuring them out. </p>
<p>Thank you. I am lucky and it was a very thoughtful gift. I think my husband meant that I am supposed to share it. :o</p>
<p>I would never recommend this to anyone as a replacement for their laptop but for a couple of days away or for a household that already has a computer and needs/wants a second internet portal this thing is great.</p>
<p>So what does 200MB or 2GB get you exactly? AT&T’s created a ‘simple’ data grid, and also a data calculator, so you can guesstimate what your usage is like. According to AT&T, here’s what each plan will generally get you:</p>
<p>– The 200MB plan: Sending/receiving 1,000 one-page text emails and 150 one-page emails with an attachment, viewing 400 Web pages, uploading/downloading 50 photos to social media sites, and (only) **20 minutes of standard-quality video watching (read: streaming a basic, low-quality **YouTube clip) a month</p>
<p>– The 2GB plan: Sending/receiving 10,000 one-page text emails and 1,500 one-page emails with an attachment, viewing 4,000 Web pages, uploading/downloading 500 photos to social media sites, and (only) 200 minutes of standard-quality video watching a month</p>
<p>xiggi, thank you for bringing this up. I’m doing a little experiment tracking how much data I’m using on my “all you can eat” iPhone plan. So far, so good: 1.3 GB received and 338 MB sent since 6/27/10, but it is just 2-3 hours a day of typical e-mail, text, and videoless Internet surfing (mostly Pubmed, shopping sites and, of course, CC :)). I think I can upgrade to the bigger screen for $20/month without a problem, but if someone has to have streaming video over the AT&T network (not Wi-Fi which does not count against your 2 GB allotment), iPad plans are not a good deal.</p>
<p>Xiggi, I appreciate the heads-up. My iPad is Wifi only. </p>
<p>I have an iPhone if I need to check something away from Wifi so I really didn’t need 3G on the iPad. Because my home is in a dicey area for AT&T 3G I DO take care with my iPhone by putting it in airplane mode when I get home so it doesn’t keep searching for service and draining the battery.</p>
<p>I will share your excitement - just got one as well. Unfortunately, it turns out that I can’t sync it to my two year old Mac laptop (hand me down from D) without a software upgrade pack that I didn’t otherwise need. So no odes or love poems quite yet, but hopefully will have it all working together soon!</p>
<p>My 84 year old mom bought one for my 86 year old dad. He can read again! Gets all his newspapers, magazines and books in type as large as he needs. AND gets admiring glances from all the college students at the local coffee shop. On my next visit, I plan on taking him to “the next level” and help him with his internet skills, so he can start using it to watch movies and news videos.</p>
<p>I believe that ATT has been offering microcells at no cost to select customers. Although some complain that using your own wifi to get a cell phone signal is bizarre, it beats getting no signal.</p>
<p>I too just got an iPad and I am in love. I love the availability of these great applications and that I can’t watch movies while I am in the kitchen cooking, etc. I love reading my first iBook, “The Island”. I love the map program as well, you can pin drop on a location and zoom down to street level and look around. I planned a whole day trip just using this app. Lots of free apps. I do wish it had a USB port so that I can expand what I do, also some kind of quick or flash player,can’t get some of the graphics that a regular laptop offers. you are right, you cannot replace the laptop.</p>
<p>There are so many hot spots that I do not see the need of having 3G. I only carry iPad with me when I travel. I use it at airports and in my hotel room.</p>
<p>For $2.95 you could download an application to work with all of your Office attachments. If your company allows you to forward your emails to your personal acct, it is quite handy to be able to read documents without having to log on to your office desktop while you are traveling.</p>
<p>I have all my pictures and music loaded on iPad. It’s nice on a long trip to be able to view pictures on a large screen, instead of on iPhone.</p>
<p>I had been thinking of getting one of those e-readers (i.e. Kindle), but now I’m thinking of an IPad. Is there any reason to get an e-reader over an IPad these days?</p>
<p>If you are going to use it primarily to read I think that the Kindle is easier on the eyes. It also is less expensive. </p>
<p>The iPad is great and I read on it all of the time but it is like viewing any other computer screen in that it tires my eyes out. If you are going to take advantage of the millions of apps available to perform all sorts of tasks then the iPad is the way to go.</p>
<p>I’ve used mine a lot for playing games–backgammon, sudoku, mahjjong, scrabble. I hadn’t planned for my iPad to become my personal game machine, but the games are addicting.</p>
<p>I also like to watch TV shows on the bigger screen of an iPad (compared to an iPod), but haven’t wanted to pay $ for them. I’ve downloaded some free HD episodes to the iPad–amazing clarity!</p>
<p>The iPad and Kindle have two distinct niches. The iPad is great for surfing and video streaming, as others have pointed out. You can certainly used your Kindle or iBooks apps. The iPad is much bulkier, heavier, and harder on the eyes than the Kindle. The Kindle is not backlit so it requires a reading light, just like a book does. Although your iPad can serve as a ereader, it’s not what it does best. With the distinct price difference between the two, it’s better to decide if you want computer capabilities that can be used as an ereader, or an ereader. If the latter, the Kindle is better…hands down.</p>
<p>“If your company allows you to forward your emails to your personal acct, it is quite handy to be able to read documents without having to log on to your office desktop while you are traveling.”</p>
<p>I set up my work e-mail (Exchange-based) on my iPhone, so I don’t even need to forward anything to my personal account. Does iPad have an option for setting an Exchange account? There must be some differences between the two devices, because I did not have to download any apps on my iPhone to view MS Office or PDF docs attached to e-mails…</p>
<p>I can´t add my firm´s email acct to any device outside of my firm and company issued BB. When I was working at different office (NY), they even monitored my emails going out of my acct to make sure I am not sending sensitive information out.</p>