Help choosing an iPad please.

POPPYOSCAR

Got my Oh the iPad mini for his birthday 16gb Wi-fi for £175 in Tesco Club card vouchers.

He is really pleased with it. Mainly uses it for surfing the web,emails and Skype.

DesperateScousewife

I have an iPhone 4. Hope that works. I am with T-Mobile on unlimited data. That ok?

Thanks for all this help. Theres a lot more to it than what I thought.

matttye

To put it simply..

WiFi only - you can only use the internet where you have access to a WiFi connection (home, some pubs, restaurants, etc.) You will not have to pay a monthly fee (other than what you already pay for your home broadband connection, if you have one).

Cellular/3G - you can use the internet anywhere where you have access to a mobile signal, much like your mobile phone, but you will have to pay a monthly fee, or buy data on pay as you go.

Tethering - this means that you share the internet connection of one device, with another device. So, for example, you can share your mobile phone's internet connection with a WiFi only iPad and your iPad would be able to connect to the internet anywhere that your phone can, but not all contracts permit this. You can get stung with tethering fees if you tether on a contract which doesn't allow it. Some networks charge a little bit extra for the privilege of tethering, even when you have "unlimited data." Overall it would probably be cheaper to tether using your phone, than to pay for a separate data connection for your iPad. 3G/cellular iPads also cost more - about £100 more - than their non-3G counterparts.

Retina - like you said, without going into too much detail it means better screen quality (there are more pixels packed into the screen so things look sharper).

16GB iPads don't take very long to fill up. I've got one. It depends how many games you think you'll install on it, how many photos you'll take/have on it, etc. I always say get the largest size you can easily afford, because it's better to have a lot of space and not use it than to want more space and not have it.

DCFC79

mummyroysof3 wrote: »

Is it only certain phones or contracts you can do tethering with?

Some networks allow tethering and some dont or say they dont allow it and will limit the speed you get.

Im on Orange/EE and they allow tethering.

techno12

Ditto Vodafone.

Though I think 'tethering' relates to physically connecting the phone to your device, not just setting it up as a portable wifi hotspot.

Lifeforms

No tethering is the act of using it to provide an internet connection to another device, despite what is used (over the air, or physically) (in the mobile internet sense)

If you create a hot spot with your phone, and use the internet on another device it is tethering. Some providers don't care (ie ignore if you do it), some don't allow it, some limit it, some allow it.

You need to contact, or find the most up to date T&C of your package/provider. If they don't allow it with your package, they may offer an add on which does allow it.

Minimum 32gb ipad 4 now imo. HOWEVER wait. Wait until the new one is out, and 4 is the previous model. You will save a few quid. You can also save a few quid with a refurb. A refurb (from apple site itself) is basically any model that has been returned for whatever (fixable) reason. So if an older one has a dodgy battery, they just replace it with a refurb, the original goes back, has a good clean up, check up, replacement battery and probably cover and is now a refurb with it's own warranty too.

So save yourself a few quid. Buy a 4 in about 2 months time when the 5 is out. Buy it refurb from apples site and save a bit more cash. But you have to be vigilant and check a lot as they go in and out of stock ultra fast.

I now would not go for a 2. it's an old older model. Unless you desperately want ultra new technology (ie newly released) then buy a 5, other wise 4 is a reasonable way to do it. The 2 is quite backwards in features to a 4 (retina screen mostly, but with a 5 out in a month or two, this would make it 3 models old, not two including the 2 itself) It is quite possible that the 2 will disapeer from apple sales as well, when the 5 comes out.

Throw another spanner in the works; do you want a full size 10 " tablet, or what about an ipad mini? Smaller, slightly cheaper, and just as nice as a 2 (no retina screen) however if an ipad mini 2 comes out same time as the 5, it might well have a retina screen.

All in all, just wait 2 months or thereabout to see what is coming from apple. They will pre-announce what it is before it's on general sale.

prowla

iPad 4 with Retina is a great product; I have a 16 GB WiFi one I got with Tesco Clubcard points.

WiFi means it doesn't have built-in mobile broadband capability (ie. it can't get internet over a mobile phone network), which shaves about £100 off the price.

16 GB memory is limited if you want to install lots of apps, as some on the game ones can be 1 GB, or if you want to store movies on the iPad itself rather than stream them.

mcfisco

Another thought if you think you may need data outside of a wifi spot is to get a 3G model and use pre-paid SIM cards
I use a 3GB/3 month card from 3 mobile that costs £12
It'll obviously depend on usage but I get around 5 months from each one, I've no idea why it doesn't cut off after 3 months

They only come in full size SIM cards AFAIK but a cheap cutter tool soon chops it down to a nano SIM.

Humphrey10

Lifeforms wrote: »

Minimum 32gb ipad 4 now imo. HOWEVER wait. Wait until the new one is out, and 4 is the previous model. You will save a few quid.

What Lifeforms said ^