3g 16gb from reliance digital on airtel prepaid. Review on Apple iPad 2

Yes apple fanboys, lets get the obvious stuff out of the way:

great design / form factor, awesome app library, snob value and that's it!

reliance digital also offered 0% emi for 6-9 months on citi, icici, hdfc cards without any fees so kudos to them for making all apple products affordable for those with cards and a big BOO to apple for its extortionist pricing in india.

everybody loves many things about the ipad2 [i'm sure its an improvement over the original], let me mention the things iHATE about my 1st tablet!

1. no flash but that's true for all apple devices [i'm a virgin apple customer so this came as a shocker]

there are apps / browsers that convert flash to HTML so that you can see most sites but I have not downloaded any yet

1. no usb [again true of all iOS as far as I know and very irritating] so I can't use my rcom HSD datastick unlike in any android tablet

   
   




2. no upgradable memory [e.g., SD card slots like other tabs] so you have to buy a new ipad if you run out of space

   
   

that's like replacing your tyre with a new one after each puncture!

1. its easy to 'brick' your ipad - mine went dead during a perfectly legal download of iOS5 [during the 1st week of use!]

there is absolutely no reason for any sane implementationof any tablet OS to crash just because the PC that its tethered to happens to abort a download midway -

[a] there should be 'milestones' or checkpoints so that any big download can resume where it disconnected which is very common on any mobile device [e.g., every Mb or so]

[b] there should be an ability to restore any ipad to its previous state with a single click in iTunes instead of taking forever to 're-sync' [kind of like the factory settings option]

[c] all syncing should be enabled over wifi or bluetooth so that no cables are required and it can be done WHILE its charging [yes, you saw that right - ipad2 does NOT recharge while plugged into any laptop]

[d] it would cost Rs. 750 to restore your ipad at reliance or other apple stores! WTF?

all ipads sold should come with a free upgrade to iOS5 which instead costs Rs. 500 unless you want to waste time doing it yourself

1. extended warranty costs another Rs. 4,300 for an extra year and does NOT cover un-bricking or iOS upgrades mentioned above in 4 [d]!

what's the point - it'll hardly have significant hardware failures during the initial 2 years

1. no zippable covers available for the ipads officially so I had to buy a samsung cover for 10" netbooks but it was still about an inch too loose - hellooo apple?!

   
   




2. avoid the white ipads since they get dirty very quickly - stick to black unless you are more obsessed about fashion than functionality

   
   




3. also no songs can be purchased since apple does not think indians deserve to pay for legal copies!

   
   

i'm not even getting into the pricing discrimination in india by the bigots in california...

only apple can get away with such 3rd class treatment and still be praised by most indian customers!

time to post that good old sign outside iTunes stores:

'dogs and indians not allowed'

or maybe it should be ' iNdians ' !

1. as a 1st time tablet user, airtel 'forgot' to mention that we have to put in 'APN settings' and we lost a few days going back and forth between reliance digital with each party blaming the other

THANK YOU APPLE FOR A WONDERFUL FIRST IMPRESSION!

is it very hard to provide the settings for the top 3-5 operators in the box itself so that users are not left to the mercy of the operators alone?

for those of you who think this is trivial - it would have caused an uproar in the US for any apple device that did not work on day 1.

BTW, its just 'airtelgprs.com' in the settings for ipad2

1. the whole 'micro' sim deal is just stupid for a tablet - just regular sims would have been fine and much less hassel for everyone in india with no cutting required.

there is NO logical reason to try to optimise on 1-2mm of space in a 9" tablet!

1. the eject mechanism is incredibly poorly designed by apple - there should have been a way to replace the sim without any tools at all [best usability]

its very flimsy and easy to break

of course apple will never provide any replacement trays - just buy another ipad instead is their solution

and customers will rave about their 'innovativeness' and cool ideas

1. my rs. 5 k samsung has a built in lost mobile tracker that can alert me via sms to a designated phone each time my sim is swapped with the new number

there is no such app for the ipad2 yet [here's hoping a free one is developed for iMessage on iOS5]

there is a high probability of theft of ipads and they should come with this feature built in

1. the safari browser does not seem to have any way of blocking ads unlike firefox or chrome add ons

not only is this very annoying, but also slows down page loading and increases usage charges for those of us paying per Mb

1. i hate the 20 mb limit on 3g downloads set by apple!

this should be determined by the operator instead

most of the best free apps and podcasts are over this limit

[a] since apple has set this totally arbitrary limit [i think its 25 mb for andriod - equally random]

the app store should have search criteria based on size [e.g., below 20 Mb]

1. I also wish we could have 'folders' instead of just screenfuls of icons

or customisable categories like games, utilities, news, social, etc

[a] a great idea would be to have default groupings using the category already in the app store when you have over a 'page' / screen of icons

1. when RIL launches 4G in 2012 q1, most android tablets will be able to upgrade via usb dongles but no ipads sold until ipad3 will be able to exploit 4G speeds - can you say 'future proofing' apple?

   
   




2. the iTunes password rules are moronic, its fine to require a min size 8 with numbers and letters like many other sites but WHY require upper and lower case also?

   
   

i agree it makes it 'more' secure but by how much?

have there been a lot of passwords hacked of just numbers & letters 8 character long without the case requirement?

i had to come up with a less secure password just to meet this unique apple requirement

my credit cards don't require mixed case and have never been hacked in a decade

1. I did not realise that the 16gb would only have 14gb available that's over 12% gone before you start

now this is true of all PC also but would it kill apple to be a little more transparent given the premiums its charging per Gb?

there is almost rs. 10 k premium between the base 16gb and the top end 64gb

that's an additional 48gb for rs. 208/gb

its not nice to find out you didn't get what you thought you were paying for after the fact

1. battery is NOT replaceable

its apparently glued in accroding to one of the teardown videos online

it would have been much more customer friendly to have swappable batteries with an external charging dock as an option

1. long recharging time

it takes about 5-6 hours on average to go from under 10% charge to fully charged

yet another reason to have a spare battery when on the road

1. the pricing!

i saved the most obvious one for last - starting at rs. 37 k for 3g [$712] its not cheap even by US standards and if we adjust for PPP [purchasing power of 3] then the equivalent american price would be $2,136 - they would have been screaming bloody murder by now!