iPad as a traveling companion
Posted by Mauricio Longo in General on Feb 26th, 2010 | 0 comments
I’m out on my first business trip since the iPad was announced and that got me into wondering about how it would fare as my traveling companion. On short trips such as this, two days away from home , I prefer to take a netbook with me, instead of my MacBook. While the MacBook isn’t a heavyweight, it does weigh about an iPad more than my netbook, which already weighs about 2 iPads.
You can see that the weight of the device has been foremost in my mind. Its weight and the associated mobility are big factors, no doubt about it. I am much quicker to bring out my netbook at any stop and I would be to do so with a full blown notebook, but the sad fact is that while a great tool, the netbook is sometimes painfully slow.
From all the reports we got from those that were present for the iPad’s announcement and had the chance to handle one, it seems to be much faster. In fact we can see that in the videos that were recorded at that event, as well.
The thing that seems to worry most people about an iPad as a traveling companion is the lack of a keyboard. For a short trip, it doesn’t bother me soo much as I think I can manage to type in two or three posts a day in a virtual keyboard. If the iPad can handle Apple’s bluetooth keyboard, it will be so much the better as that will solve the issue completely for me.
The fact that it is instantly on and much handler to handle while standing is also a big plus in most situations when you are in an airport, or walking around in a shopping mall. Of course that can already be handled by an iPhone, so it only adds the convenience of a larger display.
So far, while I still have a good appreciation for the sturdiness of my Asus netbook (which I’m using to write this post) I feel confident that the iPad will offer a better experience. We’ll have to wait and see….
