The first iPad reviews, from tech grand-daddies David Pogue and Walt Mossberg among others, are live. Go read. Don’t have the patience? Shame on you, and TL;DR follows.
Pogue says it’s no laptop replacement, but as a giant iPod touch, it’s a huge success. Mossberg says he enjoys doing most tasks on it much more than on his laptop, and considers it 80% a laptop replacement. Pogue hates the keyboard, Mossberg likes it. Both found the battery life to be exceptional — over the quoted 10 hours in both cases, which surprises me hugely. We talked about the iPad’s potential and competitors in today’s podcast, and the consensus was that, as both reviews stress, the flagship apps are the real indicator of the device class’s potential.
PC Magazine and USA Today also weigh in, and are similarly positive. Among PC Mag’s cons is the fact that earbuds are not included. Really now. Xeni has one over at BoingBoing, and she likes it so much she shot pictures of it with a soft focus filter — my mistake, it’s probably just an iPhone camera.
I notice there are few complaints about the lack of Flash support. That’s something that will emerge in time, I think — when a hundred thousand people start cruising the net and find that quite a few of their favorite sites have a few bits missing. Will they complain or merely shrug? We’ll soon find out. The whole Apple/Flash thing is a powderkeg, of course, so I’m just going to let the consumers decide.
But the best review came from Modern Family where the iPad was a major player in the story.
We’ll have our review as soon as possible. With any luck we’ll be able to throw a few of the newest apps at it as well. And my advice is, as always, to get the thing in your hands if you’re not sure. A quick trip to the Apple Store could save you (or make you part with) quite a lot of money.
And Stephen Fry got one as well, but he’s nice about it.
[image: Reuters]