I just won an iPAD at our company Christmas give away. I won one also 2 years ago but I didnt see a need for it so I sold it. My question is is there any reason to not sell this one? I have a laptop, Kindle Fire, BlueRay and a Wii already which I think meets all my needs but I may be missing something. What can the iPAD do that the other devices cannot do?
Need answers kinda fast so I know if I should tell my sons I won it. I know they will want to keep it:)
I think we’ve established that the iPad is a media consumption device. It’s handy for many things but it definitely depends on your lifestyle.
I use mine in place of a kindle (books, magazines, websurfing) and also for TV shows and movies. It’s an excellent mobile photo album although I rarely use that.
I just looked down my list of open apps (I rarely close things) and found 4 games, banking app, a couple shopping apps, two recipe repositories (if we could just settle on one standard people!) an exercise and food tracker, facetime, skype, kindle app, Safari and one app finder.
I rarely use the camera although it’s handy for snapping a shot of the whiteboard after a meeting, and I frequently choose to carry it to a meeting to take notes on if I don’t want to be disturbed (we use a messenger system at the office so if my laptop is open I am online although it does flag meetings people ignore that).
I vote for keep but I’ve had one since the first was released and it now goes almost everywhere with me.
Keep it and sell the Fire. AFAIK people buy the Fire as an “it’ll do” when they don’t want to shell out for the iPad.
Don’t tell your sons. If you give it to me, I’ll keep quiet and they’ll never know!
Keep the iPad for yourself and give the Fire to the kids.
Depending on the model, iPads go for up to what, almost a grand at the high end? What’s the Kindle Fire going to sell for, used? Chicken feed. If the Kindle is serving your needs, sell the iPad.
Edit : use the proceeds to get the kids a good joint gift, a desktop, a game system and a half-dozen games, or just split the money between them. To keep the iPad seems like a… wasteful use of the money, almost, depending on how much it’s worth.
Ipad vs Laptop
if you get the free Drop Box app, and the $29 Documents to Go, it will emulate MS Office applications quite well. When you are done with your Excel file, just drop it in the Drop Box icon, and voila, it appears on the Drop Box folder on your PC.
One nice feature, the battery life will last most of a working day…and it lets you (via I-Tunes) permanently download lots of entire movies before a trip, that you can watch on a long plane ride…versus using Netflix via the planes very very slow wi-fi.
The 3rd Gen Ipad also has an awesome hi-res camera and display
Last, it loads up apps in seconds, whereas you can time a laptop with a sundial, when both are at cold start opening an Excel file.
Sorry, no info on Kindle
more interested in how many ppl at the Xmas party…whats the secret to winning an Ipad twice? did you fold your entry card in opposing directions on all four corners (to push away adjacent entries when they pull the winner)?
I had a laptop once. It has literally not been used since about a month after I got my iPad.
Probably would help to know what specifically you use the laptop for. My iPad is much better for reading and watching movies, and I use about a gadzillion apps because it’s so much easier and quicker than using the laptop. The iPad is literally always on and the battery rusn a heck of a lot longer than my laptop (I’m assuming newer models run even longer). I load my iPad up with 15 hours of movies and videos for long trips with the kids, I’ve read more books in the last three years than maybe the previous 10 combined. I can take notes with a stylus effortlessly and quietly, and never run out of paper no matter how much I doodle <g>. Magazines on the iPad are -amazing- (Sports Illustrated, New Yorker, Wired, Economist).
The iPad does have some shortcomings. Websites using Flash don’t run (HTLM5 can’t get here quick enough…). Writing long emails etc is a bit of a pain. So I use my desktop PC for heavy computing - photoshop / lightroom, video editing, writing long emails & other documents. Otherwise - the iPad is what I use 99% of the time.
Thanks for the feedback everyone, much appreciated. And Cougar the 1st time it was out of 150 people, this time there was just 35 people in the drawing. He the company just draws names out of a hat that they put in there. Guess I am just lucky when it comes to Christmas giveaways 
*(This thread’s a week old, but I figure maybe I can piggyback on it instead of starting a new one…)
*
I just – like, three hours ago – bought an iPad: Retina display, 64 GB, Wi-fi only. In black. 
I definitely don’t need it: I already have a Windows laptop (Sony Vaio), an iPod, and an Android phone (Samsung Galaxy Nexus). It’s strictly a “want,” albeit a pretty expensive one. I typically don’t do splurges of more than $500, but a very generous Christmas gift helped me finally say “F*** it, I’m getting one.” Oh, and I bought a Logitech keyboard cover for it, because everything I’ve seen/read suggests that having an external keyboard is a good thing. (Who knows, maybe I’ll start taking it to meetings at work.)
So why did I get one? Well, I’m a musician (jazz singer), and I pretty much got it so I can more easily bring lyrics, MP3s, and charts to jams, gigs, etc. The music aspect is also why I got an Apple tablet instead of an Android tablet: there are several great, music-related apps that either (a) are only available for iOS, or (b) run better/have extra features on iOS.
So, aside from Garage Band, what apps should I download? Are there any in particular that might make my transition from Windows/Android/Google easier? I already downloaded Gmail and Google Drive, and will put Google Calendar on it later.
I use iTunes at home to manage my music collection, but I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll fire it up on the iPad or just use Amazon Cloud Player or something.
I think I’ll need something for viewing/possibly editing MS Office docs: Documents To Go seems like the no-brainer choice. Does anyone use Open Office on their iPad?
What else?? 
The iPad is genius in that they make you pay for the device that they can use to inundate you daily with advertisements. Think about it.
Not true of ultrabooks or any other model using an SSD.
That’s pretty much every electronic device on earth. But there is hope for you, my child, something I can’t say about very many.
I’ve had mine for a few days now and I haven’t seen any adverts, what am I missing?
Yeah…what ads?
Update on my original post. Device still sits wrapped in the original box. No one can tell me any reason to keep the thing:)
Well, it’s essentially a duplicate of a device you already had (the Fire). There are quality, power and functionality differences between the two but they are for similar purposes, more like rivals than complementary devices. Keeping one and getting rid of the other probably makes sense, and you’ll get more for a new-in-box iPad than for a secondhand Fire. The iPad is the superior device, but keeping the Fire makes valid financial sense if you’re content with it.
Huh?
You’re supposed to give it to your wife when she’s on her period.
… What? I meant to use when she’s stuck on the toilet cramping. Weirdo.