iNflight Entertainment

Okay, so here’s the thing. I’ve had the iPad 3G for about a month now. I love it, mostly. I’m not 100% sold, though I do think if the price were lower, it would sell out faster than it is now.

To give it the true test, I decided I’d take it, the keyboard dock, iPhone 4 and MacBook Air on a trip to California to see which I needed the most. I was on an airplane for a total of 14 hours and spent a lot of time in the car driving around Northern California. What did I find?

Let’s get the problems out of the way first: it needs a computer, for the most part, to work properly. It’s an extension of your desktop. That’s great if you’ve got a lot of money and want an easier way to surf the web from your couch and check e-mail, lazily, from bed. But if you want a slick device that does what your computer can… it’s not really there yet.

The 3G is a great step towards what I’m going to call Desktop Independence– instead of needing a WiFi connection to check my e-mail and surf the web, I can pretty much do it everywhere I go– specifically work, during down time, when I don’t feel like using the corporate network to check my personal e-mail. And the camera attachment– which lets you connect a USB camera or insert a SD card directly into the iPad (and thus, import your photos directly) is also another step towards Desktop Independence. But I still need a computer to load up my music and transfer any photos that are already on my computer that I don’t share via MobileMe– which, for the record, the iPad does a good job keeping tabs on.

As more of our computing life moves “into the cloud” I’m sure a lot of this will become baseless.

It also has a slight balance issue. Though the ad proclaims, and correctly, there’s “No wrong way to hold it” no matter how you hold it, the weight feels off. That is, it’s pound always makes me feel like I’m going to drop it no matter how I hold it– unless I rest it nicely on my lap (or in this case, have it seated nicely in the keyboard dock, on my tray table on Virgin America’s “Main Cabin Select.”

Now let’s talk bonus’.

Tray Table Top Computing

Bonus, the thing is slick. Anytime I whip it out, it gets looks and questions. I’m cool with that for now. But just as an anonymous face in the crowd likes to gaze at it’s beauty, I do too– which means I want to use it more. It’s also super convenient to carry around, so I have it with me all the time. I have it with me when I watch TV, I’ve used it while cooking (The Betty Crocker Cooking app is awesome), I take it with me to work, I take it with me on car rides, on coast-to-coast flights and to strange hotels when all I want is a mild connection to the outside world.

The iPad has a slew of slick apps, a few favorites are the Weather Bug HD app and the Weather Channel app– both of which take advantage of the larger screen real estate to present more than just a temperature and 5 day forecast. The Weather Bug, for example, gives me access to the 5 day, satellite and radar images, cameras and so much weather information I feel like I have Mike Woods loaded up on my iPad.

And that screen real estate is also a bonus– surfing the web, checking e-mail, glancing at your calendar are all better with the extra space. And so what, it doesn’t make phone calls, neither does the iPhone*.

Now, as for that need for a laptop while traveling with my iPad– the Air hasn’t left it’s comfortable spot inside my backpack. It’s charged, it’s ready, and I’d like to whip it out too as it also get a lot of looks when I do. But everything I’ve needed thus far has been accomplished by the iPad.

___

*iPhone call ability subject to network availability.