Apple iPad: My hands-on experience

Jan 28, 2010 3:00 AM

The iPad laid next to a Droid smart phone.
Photo: Jeff Fox

According to Apple, it will be 60 days before most people get their hands on an iPad. I’m one of the lucky few who got to take an iPad for a spin yesterday at the launch event. In this and my next few blog posts, I’ll let you know what the iPad was like for me to use.

For details on other aspects of the iPad, such as its specs, pricing, and pros & cons, see the postings by my colleague, Donna Tapellini, who blogged along with me at the Apple event, as well as the continuing assessments of the other expert editors here at Consumer Reports.

iPad’s look and feel

As I predicted here on Tuesday, the iPad is very thin and light, much like its smaller siblings, the iPod Touch and and iPhone. How thin? When I laid an iPad flat on a table alongside a Motorola Droid smart phone, which is fairly thin, the iPad was only slightly thicker.

The iPad’s case is thickest at the center, where the battery and most other internal components are located. It tapers off to a much thinner profile at its edges.

Holding it aloft in one hand was nearly effortless. After doing so for several minutes, I noticed no fatigue in that hand. That should be an asset when you use it to read a book or watch a video while lying on your back.

Holding it reminded me of a couple of other items I’ve grasped: A MacBook Air laptop (though the iPad has no keyboard hinged to its display) or a clipboard. Based on my experience, if you use an iPad to read a book, a newspaper, to web surf, or watch videos for extended periods, it should feel natural to hold.

As a lefty who has encountered many products designed mainly for righties I always check to see if a new product is physically awkward for me to use. The iPad wasn’t. You can rotate the display to portrait orientation or even 180 degrees so it's upside down, and the image always rights itself.

In fact, I found, there is no proper position for the single button on the front surface of the case (a button which serves as a power switch and takes you to the main screen). It’s just as appropriate positioned to the left of the display as above or below.

I’ll tell you more about my hands-on with the iPad in my next post. Meanwhile, weigh in below with your own insights and questions about this interesting new device.

—Jeff Fox