After purchasing and using my new iPad 2 for a week, I’m here to share a few tidbits about the good and the bad. The version I got is a black 16GB Wi-fi only iPad 2. In my opinion, those who should be considering get an iPad should fall in the following categories:

a) don’t own a decent laptop
b) don’t own an iPhone 4
c) want something to take on the road for emailing, word processing, and surfing the web
d) bored with a lot of $$$ to spend

If you don’t fall into any of those categories, the iPad may become redundant and somewhat useless to you. In my situation, I spilled hot coffee on my Macbook Pro (2 years old) keyboard a few weeks back and now certain keys don’t work and the laptop fails to go to sleep. So basically for the time being (until I get to replacing the non-functional parts), I have a desktop laptop with an external keyboard and mouse.

I had originally planned on getting a 13″ Macbook Air 1.86GHz with 4GB RAM but after chancing upon this iPad 2 (that I am typing this post on now) at Walmart, I knew that I had to grab this opportunity and buy the damn thing — even if I end up just selling the guy on craigslist. Well, temptation struck after the third day of staring at the package and I opened the sucker. Now let’s get into the review.

Speed-wise, the iPad 2 is super fast, no complaints there. I intend to use my iPad 2 for the following tasks:

1. Facebook
2. Browsing web, blogging
3. Reading magazines, books, news
4. Replying e-mails (I have online businesses, so replying clients = everyday)
5. Casual entertainment (games, watching TV shows)

Basically everything besides heavy duty tasks like designing with Photoshop/Illustrator and recording music. I do those taks on my handicapped Macbook Pro at home. For the five tasks I mentioned above, the iPad 2 is totally adequate. Facebook via an app like Friendly or MyPad is awesome, you can do status updates, reply comments, etc. easily. Even upload a photo you took with the iPad 2 within 30 seconds time. Safari is super fast so browsing the web is simple. You can watch youtube videos (I recommend through Safari rather than through the slow Youtube app supplied) and shop online seamlessly. I check my favorite news sources through Flipboard, a sweet app with awesome layout design. You can also use Pulse or other RSS readers for customizing your reading experience. Replying e-mails = quick and painless. Games are endless on the iPad 2, some awesome ones like Maelstorm or Infinite Blade (sp?). I use an app called AirPlay to watch a bunch of video files (movies, TV shows, etc.) on my 1 TB external hard drive at home via Wi-fi. So I’m not using any space on my 16GB drive on the iPad 2. The output of the video files on the iPad 2 = awesome.

Oh, forgot to add that I bought a Zagg Logitech keyboard/case:

This guy uber helps with typing blog posts like this and replying e-mails quickly. In terms of Wi-fi versus 3G model, you can find tons of articles debating this topic. I went with Wi-fi because.. well because it was the only one of its kind left. Black versus white? You decide, again check the plethora of articles online debating this matter.

iPad 2 = victory if you fall in one of the 4 categories above and are looking to use it for the 5 categories in list 2. Feel free to add your thoughts and/or refute me hehe

***Tip ( June 2011): Get 25% OFF iPhone skins and cases at our partner site, Mama Studio, with coupon code: GEEKMAMA.

Have you noticed a lag in the speed at which your iPhone 3G or 3Gs loads SMS text messages or web browser pages?

Here’s the solution.

Remember that your iPhone is basically a small computer, it runs an operating system just like Windows XP or Mac OS X. And just like those systems, there are background tasks running that may slow down the performance of your iPhone. So in order to speed up your iPhone, you should properly quit the applications that you are not using.

Important note (common misconception):

When you press the ‘Home’ button on the front of the iPod Touch, you are not quitting the application. You are simply closing it, but the application is still open and running in the background.

Suppose you open a game that you downloaded or an application on your iPhone that constantly updates via the internet. But you don’t use that application often. Then it is smart to quit those applications so it is not hogging the bandwidth (speed) of your iPhone in the background.

So, in order to properly quit these applications on iPhone 3G or 3Gs, perform the following steps:

1. Open the application that you wish to quit by pressing its button on the home screen.
2. Once the app opens, hold the power button (on the top of the iPhone) until the ‘Slide to Power Off’ with a red button shows up.
3. Then let go of the power button and press and hold the ‘Home’ button on the front-bottom of the iPhone.
4. When the interface returns to the home screen, you have successfully quit the application.

Perform steps 1-4 on any applications that you don’t use often. This will speed up the performance of your iPhone.

Bonus: Clear the cache of your Safari browser regularly by doing the following:

Home Screen > Settings > Safari > Clear Cache.

This will help speed up the performance of Safari when surfing the web.

Double Bonus: Got an iPad? Learn how to speed up YouTube on iPad.