Hands on with the iPad in Nairobi

Yesterday I got a chance to lay my paws on an iPad for the very first time! The device belonged to a friend of mine who works with a US-based company with offices in Nairobi. A workmate of his bought it in the USA and brought it in for him yesterday morning. I witnessed the ceremonial 'box-opening' and our gasps of awe and amazement were a clear testimony to the sleek beauty that this device possesses.

After turning it round over and over, my pal put it on charger and we took off our separate ways for what proved to be a pretty busy schedule of meetings. We met up later that evening and he had already sync'd up with his Macbook Pro as well as connected to his various online services including social media, email, calendars etc. It was quite fortunate that we met at Java Cafe in Sarit centre, where they have free wifi. The performance of this device on the 'net is nothing short of amazing, typing into text fields and documents with the onscreen keyboard is actually quite easy and a far-cry from the fiddling that one does with the tiny onscreen keyboard that the iPhone possesses.

This particular model was the current top-end device with 64GB storage, 3G+Wifi. The most amazing thing? Earlier in the day my pal had contacted Safaricom and yes, they do have the special microsim that the iPad 3G needs for service. Yippee!