Choosing an...iPad?

[Stratos]

Thank god you went for the three - it's got a faster processor and thy godly resolution but the same battery life. By any chance did you go for the 4G?

As I mostly use my iphone for bullshit gaming and getting on Smogon/facebook when outside of wifi range, I would not be the best for the job of app recommendations. However, dictionary.com is one that i find myself employing quite frequently, and it's free! Colloquy is actually quite well done and was definitely the best three bucks i have ever spent.

 

[darkie]

Reading books on the Kindle is also a little hard. As a proud owner of a Kindle Touch since Christmas, I can say that the Kindle also has Internet connection, and can surf the web. (Believe me, I've done it many times at school)

basic kindle =/= kindle touch

 

[Blkmage0253]

Grats on your purchase. What version of the iPad did you finally settle on out of curiosity?

iPad 3, 64 GB, WiFi only.

Thank god you went for the three - it's got a faster processor and thy godly resolution but the same battery life. By any chance did you go for the 4G?

Nope, I went for WiFi. Couldn't be arsed to pay another monthly bill. Not regretting it at all so far, but that might be because I've only been using it in my house. Not sure how often I'd be using it when I don't have WiFi though, so the $120+ extra wasn't justifiable for me.

Anyway, I'm having a blast taking notes on it. I'm kind of slow right now so I'll need to get used to it more before I ever use it in a class, but it's definitely something I will be using from now on. The only annoying thing is that I can't take outline notes on a textbook (ie not annotating the textbook) since it requires me to flip back and forth between documents/apps. Not a big deal since I can just view the textbook on my laptop though. A sample from notability:

large images, too lazy to resize

 

[Shinryu]

What app is that out of curiosity? Been trying to find a good note taking one myself, though it has to be on the Android side since my hacked Touchpad has that on it (shame you can't move iOS onto it...).

 

[Blkmage0253]

What app is that out of curiosity? Been trying to find a good note taking one myself, though it has to be on the Android side since my hacked Touchpad has that on it (shame you can't move iOS onto it...).

Notability. It's a paid app but at $0.99 I think it's incredibly worth it. I have the Wacom Bamboo stylus and it's very nice. Pricey but it's very sturdy and solid, no hand cramps after writing with it for 4 hours straight

 

[Carl]

nice, congrats on your purchase.

like i said before, there's no monthly bill for 3G if you don't want there to be. you can start and stop a data plan whenever you want. just have to stay on top of it otherwise it automatically re-ups in monthly cycles. kind of like netflix or hulu or any of those other services.

 

[moot]

Notability. It's a paid app but at $0.99 I think it's incredibly worth it. I have the Wacom Bamboo stylus and it's very nice. Pricey but it's very sturdy and solid, no hand cramps after writing with it for 4 hours straight

Notability is incredible, especially in science-based classes, and autosync to dropbox has saved my ass so many times. it's my go to for anyone else thinking about it - but how the FUCK do you write that neatly? is the nib on your touchpen really small?

 

[Shinryu]

I'm sad...looks like Android doesn't have Notability (I didn't see it anywhere on the PlayStore at any rate), and the only iOS thing I have is an aging iPod Touch 2nd gen >.>

Any thoughts on Evernote? It looked like it had some good reviews and useful things like screenshots of webpages and pics with camera to store as notes and such.

 

[Blkmage0253]

Notability is incredible, especially in science-based classes, and autosync to dropbox has saved my ass so many times. it's my go to for anyone else thinking about it - but how the FUCK do you write that neatly? is the nib on your touchpen really small?

ahh, i'll have to remember to turn on autosync to dropbox.

i'm kinda OCD and i've been told my handwriting is really neat. I erase a lot if it doesn't come out looking the way i want it to :x i'm not sure what the 'normal' way to handwrite notes is, but i always have it zoomed in to at most two lines of the page at once. I feel like if you zoom out any further than that you lose control

if i'm drawing diagrams i still use the zoom feature but i zoom out all the way

this is the touchpen i have: link at first i was kind of hesitant since the nib is pretty fat but it seems to get the job done really well. the feel in your hands is pretty good too

 

[Shinryu]

So I know how reviving dead topics is lame, but I feel kinda lame making another topic just to ask this:

I've been offered a used 16gb iPad 2 with wifi/3g (at&t) for $430; does that sound like a good deal? I mean it looks fairly good and has some sort of zagg leatherskin backcover, but still, $430 is a lot of money in general...not to mention I'd personally prefer a 32gb, but even on ebay that's a lot of money still. So yeah...any thoughts guys?

 

[whistle]

through an unfortunate series of events I have been offered a free ipad 3 through my school... I'm trying to figure out whether it's worth the ~$450 resale cost to keep.

also really wanted to say that blkmage's handwriting is phenomenal.

 

[Shinryu]

through an unfortunate series of events I have been offered a free ipad 3 through my school... I'm trying to figure out whether it's worth the ~$450 resale cost to keep.

also really wanted to say that blkmage's handwriting is phenomenal.

Wait...you've been offered a free iPad 3 and that's a bad thing? /confused

If it's 4g and in decent shape, I'll take it off your hands for $450 lol. Unless I'm totally misreading your post, which happens often late at night...

 

[Shinryu]

Well I just won a nice 32gb 3g+wifi iPad 2 off ebay for about the same price ($4 more) I was offered for the one I initially asked about, so yay for ebay. Even comes with a smart cover...granted it's used, but meh, the other was used as well, so it's not like it's that big of a loss. And still better than paying like $150 more for a new one (which technically they don't make for this version of the iPad 2 anymore).

 

[Snkz]

Don't buy the new highres ipad for movies! Its impossible to watch newly released or most pirated movies on them ... the quality is soooo bad! The screen demands HD everything

 

[Shinryu]

So...the iPad I just got off ebay is in great condition, only way it would be flawless would be if it was new...but the person who sold it to me failed to wipe any of their data off it, meaning I can access their Facebook, Amazon, etc...

Man the evil bug is biting hard to take advantage of someone's stupidity lol, even if I know I wouldn't do that to a random person. But still, you'd think a professor from a college out on the east coast would be a bit smarter than that...

Anyways, anyone have some recommendations for cases? It came with a Smart Cover, but I'd like something for the backside too.

 

[symphonyx64]

Check out: http://store.apple.com/us/product/IPAD_SMART_CASE_POLY-114501

 

[Shinryu]

Hmm...well that's a little crappy...I didn't realize there was that huge of a difference between ipad specific apps and iphone one and then you have ones that are compatible with both apparently >.>

I mean, having to buy Plants vs Zombies again just for the iPad version so it doesn't look as grainy is kinda...lame? Not to mention why does the iPad version of Monopoly cost $10 when the iPhone one is a mere $.99? Kinda screwy...

Still I'm not complaining, iPad 2 so far is loads better over what I've been using. Though I don't suppose anyone has a good recommendation on an app to view and manipulate Microsoft office suite (ie, Word, Excel, etc) docs with? There seems to be several out there, but dunno which is the best...

 

[Carl]

http://www.dodocase.com/products/dodo-classic

That's what I use for a case... Bought it before Apple's smart case was released because, go figure, I wanted to protect the back as well as the screen. It's a little bulky but I definitely don't worry about anything breaking my iPad..

 

[Shinryu]

Mmm that's a bit pricey...wonder what they go for on eBay.

 

[Mizuno]

For MS Office document reading and editing I use an app called CloudOn. With it you access the full Word/Excel/PowerPoint programs in their cloud server, so you can read and edit documents easily. It syncs with Dropbox, and I think Box and Google Drive as well, so it's easy to access and save documents. It requires internet access though.

Also, if you Jailbreak you can download a tweak called RetinaPad. This basically forces Retina graphics on iPhone apps viewed on the iPad, so they don't look grainy. For some reason when expanding iPhone apps in the iPad they don't update to use Retina graphics, so this tweak "fixes" that. Jailbreaking is pretty easy in the latest version.