I finally got an IPAD 32GB 3G model for myself last July during my trip to the US. I’ve never regretted it since then! This tablet has been next to me in bed all the time. Here’s a list of my experiences so far:
- I have succeeded replacing the AT&T microsim with a local prepaid Globe Tattoo sim which I cut myself using a template I found somewhere. It took awhile before I had the guts to do it but since as of now it is hard to find a prepaid microsim anywhere. Globe and Tattoo had publicized that they are selling them but whenever I visit their stores, they only have the postpaid versions (around 999 per month). I am always with wifi access most of the time but I wanted to have a backup in case there is an outage (either ISP and Meralco). The Globe tattoo prepaid 3g gets me around 300kbps speed. I still yet have to try to see if i can put it back to a regular phone without an adapter and try subscribing to a daily unlimited plan. 20 pesos per hour seems okay enough for me for occasional use.
- I noticed that, it also syncs the same apps that I downloaded for the iPhone and vice versa unless I manually delete them myself before syncing. I can set it up so that the iPhone app opens at 2x zoom by default. The Plants and Zombies iPhone version at 2x is acceptable enough and I don’t need to buy it again.
- I have read and browsed for hours I am worried my eyesight is getting worse because of it. Thanks to these apps that make browsing from iPad so much fun: Flipboard, Vinio, and various magazine apps such as Metro, Wired, and Fortune which offer free trials. I don’t expect to buy individual issues though but I would probably try a subscription at Vinio one of these days.
- I have not even tried reading ebooks yet but someday I probably will.
- I did not bother buying a display shield, because the one in my iPhone eventually bubbled up anyways.
- I find that battery gets empty after 2 days without plugging to the outlet. I use it for up to 4 hours each day I think.
- Again, watching streaming video is not so enjoyable now because my home internet is not fast enough for it (Bayantel). There is no incentive yet for me to buy US VPN service to access US streaming video sites because of this.
- I am ashamed to admit that I’ve had sore muscles several days at a time because of the IPAD. It is not heavy but it is also not as light as a small paperback novel.
- I am considering buying a wireless keyboard for it sometime in the near future. I would prefer to get something smaller but I am not so sure if non-apple keyboards would work with it.
- Tried using remote desktop app with it and it works but still I have to do some setup with my router to make my laptop accessible from the internet. Need to make sure I do it correctly and safe first before I dive deeply into this. But yes, the plan is to have this replace my heavy Thinkpad when I go out of town.
