My impressions on the new iPad: It’s not a gamechanger

I now have the new iPad. After a weekend of experimenting with it, I’m ready to pronounce it a nice upgrade, though not a compelling one. If your iPad 2 is doing the job for you, I’m not sure this latest version is a must buy.

I won’t call it the iPad 3, though that’s what it is, the third version of the amazingly powerful tablet that has become, with the iPhone, the most revolutionary tech product the tech world has ever seen. Apple chose not to give it a special name, like the 3 or the iPad HD.

I would have preferred iPad HD because with the new retina display, that’s what it sets it most apart from the iPd 1 and 2.

Yet I have to say that even with a display twice as sharp as the old one I have been using, I really can not tell the difference in most of my daily use. Truth told, I had no complaints with the old display. Where this one shows its improvement is with photos and in HD video.

What caused me to upgrade was the ability to wirelessly connect at 4G LTE speed.  I like the fact it can be tethered and run my MacBook Pro from it while on the road and I wanted to move from the AT&T network to Verizon, where I already have my iPhone and my wife’s iPhone.

The AT&T 4g network is just not as built-out as Verizon’s. With VZW, I can get 4g pretty much everywhere I go in Michigan, and all the way down the I-75 corridor to Florida. I am delighted with Verizon and now have all my advices on the network.

The camera improvement on the new iPad is also nice. But even at the new 5 megapixels, it could be better. I don’t use the iPad for video or still photos very much. Nor do I know anyone who does. The iPad just isn’t a very convenient camera.  But I’m glad there has been a quality improvement, it’s just that it’s not a game changer.

So, bottom line, I bought the new iPad for 4g access and to get me away from AT&T.

But as I’ve been setting it up over the weekend, I’ve become aware of how handy a gizmo the iPad truly is. I have vowed anew to make it my primary communication/writing/media consumption device and use it (and my iPhone)  to completely get me away from pen and paper. I’ll be experimenting with that over the next week or so.  I’ll post here to let you know how it goes and what apps seem to help in that goal.