Early reviews are in from the masses who converged on Apple Stores to snap up iPads over the weekend: Most are iGlad.
Buyers from California to North Carolina to Connecticut found the half-inch-thick slab with a 9.7-inch screen irresistible. “It’s somewhere between an iPhone and a MacBook laptop,” says Craig Single, a wedding photographer in Philadelphia.
Steven Macharelli, a technician in Farmington, Conn., bought the 1.5-pound device to replace the MacBook and iPhone he rarely uses. “I figured, why not?”
Consumers are expected to gobble up the gadget, which sold an estimated 300,000 units in its first day on Saturday.
How iPad fares with the tech-savvy could be another matter: Many scoff at iPad’s lack of a keyboard, camera and Flash, the Web’s most-popular video format. (A $69 keyboard dock, as well as a model with 3G cellular coverage for the Internet, will be available later this month.)
Prices start at $499 for a model with 16 gigabytes of storage and Internet access via Wi-Fi. About 3 million to 7.1 million iPads are expected to be sold this year, based on estimates from market research firms. “It appeals to people who can walk around a house and play with it,” says Gerry Purdy, an analyst at Mobiletrax.
“When I brought it home, my kids, who are 12 and 5, put down their iPod Touches and used iPad to play games and watch YouTube,” says Ojas Rege, vice president of products at MobileIron, a Silicon Valley start-up that writes software for smartphones. “They are my little indicators of the future.”
Not everyone, however, considers the iPad a keeper. More than 100 iPads are for sale on Craigslist and eBay — offered by people suffering from buyer’s remorse.
Sophie Siegel, a San Francisco-based publicist, got “swept up in the clapping and cheering in line” and bought one for her boyfriend…