Why you should go ahead and buy that iPad!

By | 28 January, 2011

After announcing iPad last year and releasing it in April in the US, Apple has finally decided that India should get a taste of it. Apple has launched iPad in India in its retail stores and out of its love for me has sent an email. Oh I love Apple’s optimism! After spending my inheritance on an iPhone, Apple thought I would be a potential customer for iPad too. Don’t you just love their optimism? You might think I am being sarcastic, in a sense I am, but to tell you the truth, I am tempted to buy an iPad.

I won’t be waiting in blistering cold for a product which will soon see a revision. But I am tempted. Here’s why. iPad is still the best tablet out there. Many guys have come and gone but none were able to stand up and say that, yes this is better than iPad. Amongst a potpourri of cheap Chinese tablets running Android and some big guys releasing sleek tablets, only a handful of them actually stood out. Samsung Galaxy Tab, Notion Ink Adam and Olivepad are the three tablets that stood out in the Indian market. Notion Ink’s Adam stood out, not for its tablet, but for it being designed by an Indian company. All the three tablets are Android tablets. And you know what the problem is with Android tablets. What problem?

There is actually a problem with Android tablets. The chances of your Android device running a latest version of Android OS is less than 10 percent and that for iOS devices is more than 80 percent. That is only for mobile phones. Tablets are much worse. Android doesn’t have a OS which is specifically designed for tablets. iPad has it. Many apps on Android tablets work as magnified versions of their mobile cousins or don’t work at all. Android’s tablet operating system, Honeycomb is just out for preview and should be out in March. Motorola Xoom will be a tablet running Honeycomb and a tablet to watch out for. For that tablet to make it to India it will take a minimum of eight months. Needless to say all the Android tablets (Adam, Galaxy Tab) suffer the same fate.

In the file photo made Jan. 27, 2010, the iPad is shown after it was unveiled at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Pic: AP.

Isn’t Microsoft coming out with a tablet too? That it did. MSI Windpad 100W, the weird sounding name which can be mistook for a wind farm, is actually a windows tablet launched in India. It only costs Rs. 34,990. Do I have to say more?

So what’s the best tablet which money can buy? iPad. There is no question about it. It’s the best tablet out there. Other tablets aren’t missing iPad by a whisker but by a mile. Apple is dumping all its inventory in India. So be it. They are genuine Apple products and not a refurbished lot. It would be a good eight months before India could see iPad 2 or any other revolutionary tablet which the whole world (I mean US) is talking about. If you want to wait for eight months then you might get a better tablet. But you should realize that electronic goods of all kinds are expensive bananas. Their shelf life is limited. If you are waiting then you will be waiting for a while. You know like we did for 3G and MNP.

PS : If you have friends in the US, then you already have an iPad. Or you might have bought it from the gray market. And there are 40,000 iPads in India, by the way.



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