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Apple iPad
A Touch-Feel First Look

As an Internet Device

While Safari is capable enough,the browser is let-down by the 256MB of RAM in the ipad.You won't be able to browse certain forums or sites,especially those with lots of images,or worse GIFs.The browser might stall and fail to completely load such pages.Safari also doesn't render some sites as it should-but these are few and far in between.However,since Apple refuse to support Flash,some sites will simply not work.You thus can't access the entire Internet on the iPad.Hopefully,the industry will sort this mess out and we can move forward without leaving our favourite sites behind.

As an e-Book Reader

It's an almost perfect book reader.Almost.Perfect would have been somehow marrying e-ink technology with LCD technology.But since we don't live in that Parallel universe,We cant have both(Yet).The issue?Depending on yours eyes,you might not be able to handle long Periods of reading on the Apple iPad's screen due to its backlit nature.The iPad's dpi is also not as high as the iphone's so the fonts rendered aren't as sharp as the iPhone's.

As a Comic Book Reader

The screen is just a tad smaller than ideal.About 2-inches more and it would make a perfect comic book replacement as comics would fit as is.Right now,comic readersneed to do a bit of zooming to make the panels readable.Readers such as Marvel Comics offer a very cool panel-fly effect which Pans,Zooms,and moves around comic panels lending some drama to a comic book.

The Apple iPad As a Movie Device

It's perfect.Almost.Again,the source of your videos would determine your experience.If you have a lot of DVDs,then prepare to rip thems;ditto for Blu-rays.If you have movies from other sources,then consider buying Air Video-an excellent application that transcodes everything that isn't tied down by DRM.It does the transcoding on -the-fly,over-the -air and streams it to your Apple ipad.It also handles off-line transcoding and Queues.Bottom line:if you have a lot of videos,Air video will be the best $3 you will spend on the Apple iPad.