Apple's iPad - Laptop Killer [Video Review]

After getting our hands on the iPad we believe the beautiful new touch-screen device from Apple has the potential to change mobile computing profoundly and that it will also challenge the primacy of the laptop. The device could help eventually propel the finger-driven, multitouch user interface ahead of the mouse-driven interface that has prevailed for decades. Before it does all this though, it needs to prove that it really can replace the laptop or netbook for enough common tasks, enough times, to make it a viable alternative. This task may not be easy though since many tablet computers have previously failed to catch on to the mass market, and the iPad does lack some of the features, such as a multitasking, physical keyboard, USB ports, and a webcam – all of which are features that many laptop or netbook users have come to expect.

If the iPad is portrayed as an extra device people have to carry around, it will likely have limited appeal. If however, it is portrayed as a way to replace heavier, bulkier computers much of the time for general use such as email, gaming, music, photo-viewing, social networking, web surfing, and videos – then it could easily be a game changer in a similar way to Apple’s iPhone.

Apple’s iPad is much more than an e-book or digital periodical reader, even though it seems to do both tasks in an excellent way. The device is also far more than just a big iPhone, even though it utilizes the same OS, on top of which Apple (AAPL) says it runs nearly all of the 150,000 iPhone apps on the iPad as well and more which are specifically tailored for the iPad.

The device is qualitatively different when compared to a computer in that it runs through a simple interface, can run more-sophisticated PC-like software than a phone does, and whose large screen allows much more functionality than a smartphone. Since the iPad is a “new” type of computer, you have to get a feel for it, use it, and fully understand it before you can decide whether it is the right purchase for you or whether something like a netbook might be better for you.

After using the iPad for some time, we can see where it would easily replace the use of the trusty laptop most of the time. The device can easily take over general usage for which many people would use a laptop. Cracking open the laptop could be left for writing or editing longer documents, viewing Internet videos in Adobe’s (ADBE) flash technology (which if you didn’t already know, doesn’t support Flash technology, despite its popularity online.) Although that shouldn’t be much of an issue as many big name company’s have been switching over and adapting to HTML5 for the iPad’s sake.

Our final verdict is that, while it has both compromises and drawbacks, the iPad can indeed replace a laptop for most purposes such as content consumptions, data communication, and even limited content creation often. It all depends on how you use your computer. If you’re mainly someone who surfs the web, takes notes, checks out social networks, emails, and consumes books, music, periodicals, photos, and videos, the iPad could easily be the right choice for you. If you are someone who needs to create or edit large spreadsheets or long documents, or you have elaborate systems for organizing email, or need to perform video chats, the iPad isn’t going to cut it for your needs.

Design

The iPad is lighter and thinner than any netbook or laptop we’ve seen. It weighs in at just 1.5 pounds and has an aluminum and glass body that is a mere half-inch thick. It boasts a big and bright color 9.7-inch screen that occupies the majority of the front. As on all Apple portable devices, the battery is sealed in and nonreplaceable. It also comes with decent speakers and even a tiny microphone. Memory is also sealed in and nonexpendable (ranges from 16 gigabytes to 64.) You can try to get your hands on the Wi-Fi only model which as mentioned requires wireless connection to the Internet, or you can wait and buy one with a WiFi plus an AT&T (T) 3G cellular connection. The 3G models are said to be released about a month later. The prices start at $499 and go as high as $829 with the costlier models having more memory and/or 3G. The cellular models don’t require a contract or termination fee and you can pay AT&T either $15 a month for 250 MB of data use or $30 a month for unlimited data (both of which are a significant reduction from typical prices for laptop cellular connectivity.)

We were also impressed with the overall speed of the iPad, which is run by Apple’s custom processor. Screens appear almost instantly and the WiFi speed ran as quick as it did on our laptops.

EMail

Email was easy and productive to use and we had no trouble typing accurately or quickly on the iPad’s wide on-screen keyboard. The iPad virtual keyboard actually seemed much more accurate and comfortable than many of the other cramped keyboards and touchpad’s on many netbooks, though some people might disagree. Apple’s $39 iPad case, which bends to set up a nice angle for typing also helps quite a bit.

Browser

The web browser also works beautifully and takes full advantage of the big screen to show full pages and cut down on scrolling. The browser even has a bookmarks bar at the top, which wasn’t implemented in the other iPhone OS devices. As mentioned before though, it doesn’t support Adobe’s Flash technology. Syncing the iPad’s calcendars and contacts apps with Google (GOOG) and Apple’s Mobileme was very simple.

E-Reader

Reading books, playing games, listening to music, viewing photos, and watching videos was all very satisfying and fun to do. Twitter and Facebook were also very fun and simple to use. We were also able to easily get some work done on the option iPad word processor, called Pages, which is a part of a $30 suite that includes a spreadsheet and presentation program. Pages, was a content creation app that should help the iPad compete with laptops and can import Microsoft Office files. One issue in this was the fact that only the word processor exports to Microsoft’s formats, and not always accurately either. In one of our documents, the exported Word file had misaligned text and when we tried exporting the document as a PDF file, it was unreadable.

Photo App

The photo app is visually stunning, and much more similar to the one on the Mac than the one on the iPhone. The device can even be used as a digital picture frame. The iPod app is also striking, as are the calendar and contact apps. Unfortunately Apple excluded some of the more familiar apps from the iPhone, such as Clock, Stocks, and Weather.

We also tried and really enjoyed iBooks, Apple’s book reader and store, which was easy to use. The larger screen was superior to many of the other current e-book readers and we didn’t encounter any eyestrain either. Downsides of the iBooks app included any way to enter notes and the fact that Apple’s catalog at launch will only be about 60,000 books whereas Amazon’s Kindle for example has 400,000. That should all change within time as Apple is aggressively taking steps to expand into the e-book market as well.

Third Party Apps

The iPad can run two types of third-party applications both of which are available from Apple’s app store. It can use nearly all of the existing iPhone apps, which run in a small iPhone-size window in the middle of the screen (which makes them look tiny) or blown up to double the size. The larger size makes them fill the screen but can make certain images and motions look blocky. Many of the apps we tested worked properly though. It can run a new class of specifically designed iPad apps, of which Apple has already announced 1,348 for launch. The revamped App Store, also features the iPad apps more prominently when you’re on an iPad, making it easier to use. Based on the apps that are already up, some developers are testing high prices for iPad apps. The apps we saw ranged from $.99 to $49.99, while others were free. Apple has also rebuilt its own core of iPhone apps for the iPad to add sophisticated features that make the apps work like programs that look and work more like PC or Mac software. An example would be “popover” menus that make it easier to make choices without leaving the current screen you are on, and when the iPad is held horizontally, many programs now have two panels, which make them faster and more useful.

We tested a small selection of the new third-party iPad apps and most were also rich and feature-filled, beyond what the iPhone apps had to offer. These included games, news services, database apps, and more. Many of the newspaper and magazine type apps were gorgeous and highly functional – by far the best implementation of the newspaper or magazine we’ve ever seen on a screen. The iPad version blends much more of the look and feel of the print paper into the electronic environment.

We did run into some limitations, which we found very annoying. Examples would include the email program lacking the ability to create local folders, rules for auto-sorting messages, and the function of group addressing. The browser doesn’t have any tab functionality. And the Wi-Fi only version lacks GPS. For those of you who are videophiles, you may also dislike the fact that the iPad’s screen lacks wide-screen dimensions, so you will always either get black bars above or below wide screen videos, or if you choose an option to fill the screen, some of the picture may get cut off.

Overall however, the iPad is an advance in making more sophisticated computing possible via the simple touch interface on a light and thin device. Only time will be able to tell if it is a real challenger to the laptop and netbook but we can definitely say it will make an impact in the industry.