On the 2nd of April 2010 Apple released the iPad.  The sales of the iPad on the released date soared through the roof surpassing the sales of iPhone on its opening day.

The price for an iPad with 16GB of hard disk space and wifi cost around RM 1,604.88 ($499) and the top of line iPad with 64GB of hard disk space, wifi and 3G connectivity will cost a whopping RM 2,666.23 ($829).  This is just a direct conversion from what the iPad costs in the United States.

Before you spend that hard earn cash of yours, do consider whether is it really worth it to purchase the iPad? Buying a netbook would be a lot cheaper and the netbook mostly do what the iPad does.  So what makes buying the iPad worth it?  We have to look for the pros and cons of the iPad.  I prefer to give out the bad news first so…

Lets take a look at the cons of the iPad:

  • The iPad does not have a built in camera, so no video chatting on the iPad.   With that kind of price tag, the iPad should have a built in camera, preferably a good one too.  I like video   chatting, its way more fun and interesting when you get to see the person you’re talking with.
  • Mr Jobs said surfing the web with an iPad “will be the best experience you’ll ever have” and here’s what Mr Fauzul Bahari says “crap, why aren’t videos from YouTube playing”.  The iPad does not support Flash.  No Flash = no YouTube = crappy net experience.  Man do I love YouTube.
  • I sometimes enjoy programming but most of the time it drives me crazy.  I’m an IT student so whether I like it or not I have to program.  The iPad doesn’t let me do that, you can’t do programming right on the iPad.  With that said not many end users of the iPad know how to program but to us programmers this is a turn off.  Although there is a workaround to this problem which is by programming in a browser base IDE, it is still not the same.  Boohoo.
  • 64GB of storage space.  That’s the maximum internal storage space that the iPad has.  I could get 160GB of storage space with a netbook that costs RM999.oo ($311.14).  Dear Mr Jobs, why oh why can’t an iPad worth $829 come with a hard disk space more than 64GB.  I figured that by paying that much for an iPad, the customer should at least be entitled with an iPad with 320GB of storage.
  • To virtual farmers everywhere,  no Flash = no Farm Ville = dying crops = arghhh!!! Why? Read the second bullet point.
  • I gotta say that the iPad’s battery life is amazing, it can last for more than 10 hours on a continuous use.  So what is the contra here you might ask.  Well the iPad battery cannot be swapped like the netbooks or upgraded because the battery is fixed inside the iPad.
  • If you’re a blogger than typing content for your blog would be a drag on the iPad.  Typing on a touch screen is slow and the screen is also laying flat on your table or your laps making it quite uncomfortable to look at what you are typing with your fingers also on the screen.  Having an angled screen helps a lot in this situation.
  • You cannot upgrade the iPad that you have purchased.  You’re stuck with what you have purchased.  With the netbook you still have the option of upgrading the RAM and the hard drive.

Now, lets take a look at the pros of the iPad:

  • NONE!

Buying an iPad just doesn’t seem to be worth it in my opinion.  Netbooks are a lot better and can do a lot more then the iPad with a cheaper price tag.

So I’ll repeat it again just for the fun of it…

iPad: Meh!


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