IT Pro Verdict

The iPad is a great tool if you only need the capabilities of an iPhone with a large screen. Sure, email and the browser excel here, but to make it perfect for everything else, it needs much better security and you’ll have to purchase the extra dock and keyboard to make working on the move viable.

By Clare Hopping

published 12 April 2010

in Reviews

We were imagining the up scaling to be more impressive in fact it just takes existing apps at their native resolution and plonks them in the middle of the page, or makes them double the size and heavily pixelated, with the end result feeling like you're using a novelty phone.

Don't get us wrong though they are equally as usable, but you will find yourself squinting to see text, even though you don't squint to see them on your iPhone.

Unlike RIM's business solution for BlackBerry, security for the iPad and compatibility with virtual applications is rather limited.

Although Apple is promising to bring data and email encryption with the iPhone 4.0 OS, there are none as yet. Email is as secure as it was on the iPhone, but without any computer-like security measures and a hack being demonstrated just 24 hours after the iPad's lunch, it's a little worrying that there's no secure business solution as yet.

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Surprisingly for an Apple device, we found that battery life was actually better than we thought it would be. During our test period, it out-performed Apple's quoted 10 hours.

While using multiple apps in a day, playing Real Racing HD, listening to music, checking email and repeatedly turning the iPad on and off to rectify Wi-Fi issues (plus writing this review), the iPad managed to effectively manage the power better than the iPhone, which leads us to wonder exactly how much extra power 3G data consumes in comparison.

However, one area where the iPad does fall down is charging. We expected it to charge up as swiftly as an iPhone does. Not so. In fact, it took more than twice the time and we were using the mains charger as charging from a laptop just didn't work.

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Clare is the founder of Blue Cactus Digital, a digital marketing company that helps ethical and sustainability-focused businesses grow their customer base.

Prior to becoming a marketer, Clare was a journalist, working at a range of mobile device-focused outlets including Know Your Mobile before moving into freelance life.

As a freelance writer, she drew on her expertise in mobility to write features and guides for ITPro, as well as regularly writing news stories on a wide range of topics.