Saturday, March 26, 2011

The Tale of 5 iPads

When I think back to my personal experience with the iPad, I almost find it ridiculous to think that I have actually owned 5 different versions in just a year. Here's the long story of how I came to own so many iPads...

When the iPad was first announced, I hesitated buying one, but when more and more information came out, I found myself wanting one badly. The actual day that the iPad was released was a Saturday and I couldn't help myself, I drove to Best Buy and bought one. This would be iPad #1.

My first iPad (which was named 'Silverback') was a 16GB wifi-only. The first batch of iPads were all wifi-only and the 3G models were expected to be released about a month later. I had a lot of fun with Silverback, and it was a whole new way to compute. I soon realized that even though it was amazing, I wanted the 3G model so I sold my iPad to a co-worker and decided to wait until the 3G iPad was released.

My second iPad (named 'C3GPO') was a 64GB 3G model. After I sold my first iPad, I was having withdrawal and couldn't wait until the 3G iPads were released. Once the date was set (which was a weekday at 5pm,) I decided to take a day off work and wait in line at Best Buy. I was probably 11th in line by the time I got there and stock was limited... I initially wanted a 32GB 3G iPad, but only 64GB was left, so I bought it immediately (thankfully, I found out that the 64GB was essential for me.)

C3GPO was my main iPad until recently. I used it every single day, even when I was on vacation and at work. I will never forget the time I spent with it. This was truly the device that started a new era in computing and I'm glad I was around to experience it first-hand.


Along comes 2011 and as is tradition for Apple, a new model of iPad was expected to come out. Steve Jobs officially announced the iPad 2 in early March and although it didn't have revolutionary changes, it offered a lot of nice upgrades. Speed and memory increases, a camera in front and back, white & black models and a thinner design were what made iPad 2 special, these differences were enough to make me want one.

I recently started a new job, so it was going to be impossible for me to take off work to wait in line on the release day of iPad 2, and once again the time of release was 5pm on a weekday. I worked until 5pm so I knew that it would be hard for me to get one, and sure enough I went to 5 different stores after work left empty handed. Some of the stores did have it in stock, but it wasn't the exact model I was looking for (Black 64GB 3G AT&T,) so I decided to keep trying.

The next day, I decided to drive 40 minutes away to Lancaster, PA (the nearest Apple Store,) and try my luck. They actually did have an iPad in stock, a white 32GB 3G Verizon model. Unfortunately this was almost the exact opposite of what I wanted, but with the last available iPad staring me in the face, I found the temptation was too much to take so I bought it regardless of the specs (and named it 'AlbiPad.') I figured that the white would grow on me, the 32GB would probably be enough and Verizon was just as good as AT&T. This would all turn out to be a mistake.

First, the color was unbearable. I tried and tried to appreciate the white bezel, but I just couldn't. It just didn't feel right having a white iPad. I understand that the original iPod was white and it worked fine then, but it just didn't look good to me on the iPad.

The second issue was the size. 32 GB could be manageable for most people, but not for me. My first (well, second...hehe) iPad was 64 GB and I think I only had 5 GB free by the time I got rid of it. I needed 64 gigs for all of my movies, tv shows and comic books.

The final deal-breaker was Verizon... I understand that Verizon technically has better coverage than AT&T, but I have AT&T on my phone and my first iPad, and I never had a problem with it at all, plus it's faster than Verizon. All of these things combined led me to take AlbiPad back to the Apple Store.

I found myself iPad-less again, but I was having fun constantly hunting for one at local Best Buys, Walmarts, Targets and the Lancaster Apple Store. It wasn't until the next weekend that my luck began to turn around again.

On Saturday I went to the Apple Store at 7:30am (the store opened at 8am.) I was about 20th in line and since they only had about 8 iPads in stock... I didn't get one.

The next day, on Sunday, I went back to the Apple Store, this time at around 6am. I ended up being 8th in line and by the time it came to my turn, the only iPads available were black 64GB wifi-only and white 32GB AT&T's... I refused the white model and although it wasn't 3G, I decided to buy the black 64 GB and named it 'Homie' (not only because it's black, but because it's wifi-only I'd mostly be using it at home.) I was pretty happy with my decision and justified that I really only used the 3G on my first iPad about 5 times, so I could make do without it.

It was less than a week later that I stumbled across a newly replenished stock of iPad 2's at a local Target. They had almost every model of iPad including the black 64GB AT&T and I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to finally get the iPad I truly wanted. I bought it without hesitation and the same day I drove back to Lancaster to return Homie to the store.

This time, I am all set... My new iPad 2 (named 'SambiPad') was exactly what I wanted and I couldn't be happier with it. Unless something goes wrong with the device itself, SambiPad is all I'll need for a long while... or at least until iPad 3 comes out next year.



-- Posted from my iPad 2

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