Why I will not be getting an iPad

Matthew — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:35:44 +0000

Menstrual pad jokes aside, I was thoroughly disappointed of Apple’s long awaited tablet PC announcement. I can see what they were going for in the iPad, and it all seems like a great idea, but there’s simply nothing that I need it for that isn’t already fulfilled by another device. A portable, touchscreen based, web browsing device with the backing of a huge app store is great, and I’d love to have one of these if it would simply fit into my pocket so that I could take it anywhere with me… oh wait, that’s right, I already have one of those. Now, I don’t want to attack the Apple brand, there are a lot of things about them that I do not like, but I can always count on them to deliver a great user experience in their devices, and Apple products always look sexy. I’m just finding it difficult to see what I can do with an iPad. It’s not quite a full-fledged computer, but it’s a bit more than an iPhone, and yet loses the portable edge that the iPhone has to offer over netbooks.

Another similar product that might be worthwhile to check out once it hits the market is the JooJoo formerly known as the CrunchPad before Fusion Garage walked away with the product and left TechCrunch out of the equation. The benefit being, that it’s Linux-based, and is likely to be more useful than the iPad. The JooJoo claims full HD support, and is capable of streaming from websites like Hulu. It appears to be just as slim as the iPad, with a larger screen, albeit less memory, but unlike the iPad it’ll likely have an expansion slot. Also unlike the iPad, the JooJoo will have a built-in camera!

I’ll buy the first tablet that has a hybrid OLED/E-Ink capacitive touch screen, internal flash memory, expansion slot, built in HD video camera, with 3g (or 4g) data, and built on an open platform. I’m hoping that Google decides to enter this market, and that they get it right.

Enjoying my nexus one.

Matthew — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 21:27:04 +0000

Awhile back I purchased an HTC Hero. It was my first Android handst, and I was thoroughly satisfied by the Android experience. Inevitably, I ended up returning the phone, for several reasons:
1) The Hero’s SenseUI was custom built on top of Android. There was no set date that the Hero would be getting OS updates (like Android 2.0). Until recently, neither HTC nor Sprint would say whether or not they would be pushing the update at all.
2) It was a very solid phone and fluid user experience, but the internally, the phone was running last-gen hardware. It’s not that big of a deal, but I want to be able to purchase something top of the line that will be sufficient for most of the 2-year contract period.

With that being said, here are what I believe to be the main advantages of the N1. It is running the latest version of Android of any phone on the market (Android 2.1). The hardware is the best of it’s kind on the market (snapdragon).

The touchscreen is slightly larger than the iPhone, and it’s still a very slim phone. It has one of the best cameras of cell phones (5 megapixel), and out of the box supports standard things like picture messaging, copy+paste, stereo bluetooth, gps, and video which first gen iPhone users can’t even do. The GPS Navigation software is standard on Android phones, unlike the iPhone whose software for turn-by-turn is added to monthly service or the TomTom software’s initial costs are about $100.

Overall, I think that the N1 is the first all-around Android phone that rivals side-by-side any other smartphone out right now. The only Android disadvantage is the lack of quality apps, which should hopefully change over time, remember, the iPhone has a headstart by a few years.

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Why I will not be getting an iPad

Enjoying my nexus one.