Review iPad: Apple’s tactile tablet

A tactile tablet with assured success!
It’s now a few weeks since the iPad was made available. It was with a clear mind and some reflection that we wanted to test this "made by Apple" tactile screen which can be taken everywhere with you. The personal tablet computer has, without being a surprise, being a real success. According to Apple, since the 22nd of June 2010 more than 3 million iPad’s have been sold in the United States! Following the success of the iPod Touch and even more so the iPhone, have we now seen the time of the "large tablet"? Here we are face to face with a new concept which has been pushed by a well developed marketing campaign, with the device also surfing on the success of the iPhone OS (3.2 at the time of testing) where a simple click allows you to install free or commercial programs that are both useful and entertaining.

An iPad, yes but… what for?
What use is the iPad if you already have a connected laptop computer which is more powerful and less onerous, like a netbook, for example? This is a question that we no longer ask ourselves, even if we didn’t know that the most common uses among users is to surf the Internet, chat, watch videos or view photos, post to social networks, play games, find trip itineraries, read magazines or books and manage your contacts and appointments. The iPad is well adapted to do all of these things, so the additional power isn’t necessarily required in most situations.

Various configurations and prices...
Various configurations exist for this 9.7" (25 cm) mobile device offering a screen resolution of 1 024 x 768, with the two distinct versions the iPad Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G being available. All models are powered by a low consummation A4 processor (1 GHz ARM), come with Bluetooth 2.1 and depending on how much you want to spend, with 16, 32 or 64 GB of Flash memory. As we will see throughout this review, the machine doesn’t have any USB ports, memory card slots, HDMI or even VGA video outputs.