Hands on with the IPad

When a friend of mine at SXSW took me aside and slipped me his review copy of an Apple iPad, my first impression was that the device was absolutely beautiful. Without even turning it on, it was definitely something that looked aesthetically gorgeous.

When I turned the device on, it also looked beautiful. The graphics were crisp and sharp, and the touchscreen worked flawlessly - with the exception on a slight area in the upper left corner that seemed to be a dead patch. However, I was informed that with a complete device restart, that would correct itself.

The first thing that I wanted to try out was the onscreen keyboard and although it worked well enough, I found it somewhat difficult to type on. The keyboard spacing was strange - not close enough to put the iPad on my lap to type on and definitely not close enough together to do "thumb typing."

Next, I tried it out as an eReader, and that's one area where it did well. I looked at both magazine and book layouts, and both performed flawlessly. I'm not sure if it looked as good as the e-ink that a Kindle has, but it certainly could be used for at least an hour without causing any eyestrain, I'd think.

The model that I tried did not have the 3G, naturally, but the wireless certainly delivered top performance. The device seemed to be able to handle anything that I threw at it without slowing down in either speed or in terms of performance.

Now, if you've seen an iPad and haven't held it, I can tell you that it feels substantial. This doesn't mean that it weighs a ton, of course, but it means that it feels solid in your hand. When I was holding it, I didn't feel as if the slightest accident was going to cause it to break.

Web browsing was definitely speedy. I know there are people out there complaining about the lack of Flash on the iPad, but I've heard some whispers from my contacts at the Wall Street Journal that claim they're going to be working on pages that don't need Flash, just for iPad users. That being the case, I'll bet you're going to find others doing the same. Who knows? Flash might actually go away, if the iPad is popular enough.

I didn't get to play with it as much as I would have liked, but I think that I got a strong enough feel for it to determine whether or not it's going to be a success.

Gut instinct - yes.

Oh, it's not going to be an iPhone success. At least, not right away. But, give it enough time, let more and more people start playing with it, and the next thing that you're going to know, you'll probably see an iPad everywhere you look.