iPad 3 is here and it’s HOT!!!

March 18, 2012

As stated on Twitter Thursday night I waited in line at Wal-Mart for the iPad 3. Wal-Mart was selling 5 iPad 3s at every location. I went with a friend at 9 pm after going to Red Robin. We had decided that if there were 5 people in line we would turn around and go home. When we arrived there were two people who had been waiting there since 5 pm. I am not sure of the general turn out nationwide, but we end up being the only 4 people there to collect 1 of 5 iPad 3. This Wal-Mart is a bit out of the way, which may explain why so few people were there. Though I made the mistake last month after 11 pm at this same Wal-Mart to decide I needed more canned air to clean out my computers and ended up venturing in during a Twilight Light release party (shudder) and it was packed with would be vampires and werewolves. Despite the lack of increasing numbers we were told that we had to wait till 12:01 am to get our iPad 3’s. The check clerk started checking us out at 12:09 am.

Around 1 am me and my friend made the out of the Box video of the iPad with the iPad 3, narration by my friend. Never mind it only took 10 times to make the below video which I finale uploaded at 2:30 am. I think this will be the last time I make a video half dead as I only had 2 hours of sleep that day, so I promise better next time around.

Full disclosure about my iPad 3 review

Should you click on any of the links within this post and make a purchase, I make an affiliate commission. Sure there are those that argue that I hate affiliate programs, but these are the same people that don’t want to disclose that they push review sites for the sake of a commission through affiliate programs. It’s not that they make money by affiliate program that I have a problem with; it’s their method and the lack of disclosure.

While I do my best to be unbiased, I may have to warn you to what amounts to a fan boy love affair with a product when it’s clear I have a bias towards a product.

What I will never do is tell you to buy a product that I would not buy. Nor will I tell you to buy a product just because I get paid a commission. Despite that I suck as a sales person, and very likely may talk you out of buying something.

As with all reviews use your best judgment!!!

iPad 3 is hot, no really it gets hot!!!!

While the first iPad would slow down if I ran too many items, the iPad 3 so far has not. I have had three games, a browser with 5 tabs going on (ok that is really lite for me), Pandora, the Camera, and the Weather Channel app. Point is I could not see a single delay. But it gets rather hot, nothing that bothers a desert rat like me but it’s significantly warmer than the first iPad gets when running multiple items.

On the first iPad it was easy to realize when too many programs were running, it performed slower. So naturally I would close things down. My suggestion to keep the temperature low and lengthen battery life is to close off anything not in use, and lower the display brightness. Personally I would not be surprised to see a case that comes out for cooling the device. Though I thought I would see one that would add to the battery power of the device. Perhaps such items add too much weight for consideration. After all the first iPad with an Otter Box Cover is almost double the weight.

A few questions I have gotten from friends that don’t know much about iPads.

Every time I buy a toy my friends that are not as obsessed as I am ask questions about what I buy. Mostly commonly is why did I buy a black and white reading device (Kindle 2 and Kindle Touch). In short I can read them in the sun and they have a really long battery life.

But here is what I was asked about the iPad 3:

Is it heavier than the first iPad or iPad 2?

To me there is not a significant difference between the three devices.

Is it bigger/thicker than the iPad/iPad 2?

IPad 3 is actually thinner than the first iPad, though slightly thicker than iPad 2.

Should I get an iPad 3 if I had iPad or iPad 2?

If you have an iPad 2, I would say no. There is not a huge difference between it and the iPad 3. My friends that are obsessed with getting everything Apple state there is not a huge improvement.

As for replacing iPad with the iPad 3, there are a lot of good reasons for switching over. Here are a few:

It has a Camera
Performs faster than the first iPad
It was made to be more of a production machine, than just a media consumption device like most tablets.
Faster browser

What is missing from iPad 3?

Once again there is no memory card slot. It boggles the mind as to why they would do that, other than oh say to get people to buy one with 32 gigs or 64 gigs. This time around I choose to go with the 16 gigs over the 64 gig model not because I don’t use the space, but that I can’t store what I want to, which is a lot of personal data, Other that apps the most I ever kept on this device was 10 gigs, I may regret later only getting the 16 gig device, as this is the first time ever I have bought device with less memory than a previous device. With the Kindle Fire I can tell you that 8 gigs is not enough. The apps that make it too small are the Audubon Apps, one of which wants to use 500 meg. A lot of the tablets I have looked at lack a SD card slot, except for the Barnes and Noble Nook.

iPad 3 versus other tablets, whose best?

Just to be clear I am not an Apple enthusiast. I am not going to abandon all of those pc machines at my desk in favor of a Macintosh. This is the first device that I have actually purchased waiting in line on the launch date. To be honest I am leaning towards Amazon as future leader.