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After several years of speculation and rumours, Apple has finally released the long-awaited and much anticipated new tablet, iPad. With a 9.7 inch multi-touch display, a weight of only 700g and a depth of just over a 1cm, iPad falls into the segment between phones and laptops, which has so far been dominated by the small netbooks.

According to CEO Steve Jobs, the problem with netbooks is that they sacrifice too much in terms of performance and quality in order to balance out battery life, mobility, functionality and price, so Apple has taken a different approach with the iPad. It is primarily made for surfing, playing music and reading e-books, and many will inevitably view it as an overgrown iPhone.

As it is based on the iPhone OS, syncs with your Mac in the same manner as your iPhone and even supports all the same apps (and no, you do not have to go out and buy them again), that might actually be a reasonable view. iPad also has an accelerometer and can be viewed in portrait or landscape (in the latter, the on-screen keyboard is apparently "amazing" to type with and almost full-size). There is also a compass.

iPad's battery can handle 10 hours of surfing, video playback or music, and a whole month on standby. It can play YouTube HD (720p) video and video from iTunes, but does not support Adobe Flash at this point. To get in on the e-book ride, Apple has included an e-book app called iBooks and made an online e-book store.

iPad has the following specs:

- 9.7 inch IPS multi-touch display, 1024 x 768 pixels
- 1GHz Apple A4 ARM-based processor
- 16/32/64 GB storage
- Connectivity: 802.11 b/g/draft-N Wifi, Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR, optional 3G
- Dock port, audio output, integrated speakers and microphone
- 25Whr battery (lasts up to 10 hours)
- Accelerometer, compass, ambient light sensor
- Supports up to 720p video
- Weight: 700g
- Dimensions: 242.8 (H) x 189.7 (W) x 13.4 (D) mm

There are also some accessories, the most interesting of which is probably the iPad Keyboard Dock, basically a full-size Apple keyboard you insert the device into.

iPad will be available in March (April if you want 3G) at a starting price of $499, a nice surprise from the company who famously claimed they could not make a laptop (yeah yeah, we know it is tablet) for under a grand.

Source: Apple

Via: Liliputing