My Newest E-Book Reader! The iPad! It’s Shiny!

Apple iPad Tablet (64GB, Wifi + 3G)
My sweet sweet husband…the techie. Just dying for an excuse to buy the latest and greatest. Each time we’d stop in an electronics store, there’d always be the obligatory iPad touching, and his trying to convince me of how badly we needed one – that somehow, it MUST have something that would make our lives easier, right?

So this weekend (while yet again, on another business trip),  he asked me what I wanted for my birthday (and my answer is usually, oh I dunno…books, or anything to do with books), I shrugged and said hrmmm…how about an iPad? Now I wasn’t really expecting one, but I had heard good things (especially for ebook reading), so why not? What do I want for my birthday – sure – let’s go with that! Why not blow his mind a little since usually my requests are sorta lame and uninspired. LOL! I should have known my suggestion was actually the “okay – go get one” that he had been waiting for.

And he did. Within an hour of my nonchalant suggestion, I had one, complete with 3G abilities, He even proceeded to load it up with the Kindle and Barnes and Noble readers, and purchased me some books from each that I could start reading. What an amazing business trip this turned out to be. He was especially happy since the 3G versions are out of stock everywhere in our area. Looks like he’d been doing his research…Why do I have a feeling this was his plan alllll along? Now if only I could get my Sony E-books on there too, my life would be complete! Do you even know how many Sony ebooks I’ve amassed? So until Sony makes nice, still have to use it to read what I’ve got on it. But let’s just say, I’ve got way more room to play now with my iPad.   So far, despite  my limited experience with my iPad, here are the most obvious “improvements”.

• It’s a full color screen (my Sony is black and white)
• It’s fairly light (roughly 1lb 9oz), while my Sony Reader is just shy of a pound (barely a difference in weight between the two), but my iPad has an amazingy huge screen size that makes me feel like I’m reading nice big hard cover pages. The screen is roughly 7.75″ x 5.75″ while my Sony screen is only about 5″ x 3.75″.
• It is backlit! No more scrambling for book light batteries, and uneven screen lighting.
• I can highlight book passages and make notes (to help with my reviews) along with bookmarks while my Sony Reader would only allow me to bookmark (and I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but it had a bad habit of rebooting on some books, deleting all the bookmarks I had saved from it). GRRRRRR!!! Hard to do reviews with no bookmarks of my favorite parts.
• I can have multiple readers in it and take advantage of multiple e-book stores sales and freebies (along with, of course, the occasional issue of a book not being available at Sony, while it was available elsewhere – like Amazon). Now I’m not limited. And who likes limits? Not I!
• And of course, the iPad is pretty much like a mini laptop. All sorts of extremely usable productivity “apps” that allow for word processing, intricate to do lists and scheduling, games, videos (yeah I’ll admit it – I watched the video release for Jersey Shore, Season 2 – LOL but I promise!! I did roll my eyes in exasperation many, many times). Browsing the Internet, full email capabilities, it was almost exactly like dragging my laptop around, but easier to carry. I even spent a nice evening at the hotel bar with my colleagues while we watched crazy YouTube videos like this one, and this one. Ok yeah, we think cats are funny! So will you, you’ll see (although I think we drove the bartender crazy with the first one).

So there you have it! Here are a few pics of my own iPad (below) and a screen shot of the next book in my Christine Feehan “Dark Series” marathon (that one’s up at the top). Looks great doesn’t it!!!??

UPDATE: 03/18/11

OMG!! Just bought the coolest keyboard case thingie for my iPad. It literally turns it into a laptop, so now when I go on biz trips, I can blog and have fun with you guys with ease! YAY, plus all my books are in here! BEST invention ever (next to the iPad of course). It’s called the Rocketfish Ipad Keyboard Capsule. Oh and I just typed this with the new contraption!! While in my car!! Don’t worry, my husband’s driving – it’s not that smart… yet 😉

One of my Facebook friends asked me how I liked the iPad compared to the other e-readers. Here’s what I answered:

“I LOVE IT! The most awesome thing, ever. I have access to three different readers (Kindle, Nook and iBooks), and I can read hands free now, propped up on my knees, or with a case that doubles as a stand (or this new keyboard thingie does it too). I had a Sony e-reader but the screen was small, and not color, and I needed a light for it. This is backlit so even in the dark, I’m good to go. PLUS – when I get excited about a part in a book, I can just switch to my Facebook, and *squee* and come right back to my book, without missing a beat!”