I do not think I have to tell any of what was in the package I received today.  Today is April 3, and we have been talking about this for several months now, so let’s just go ahead and dive right in.

Like many of you, I have been waiting for this day for a long time.  I preordered my iPad on the first day it was available, and spent most of the day hanging around the house today waiting for it to arrive (it finally came around 2:00 this afternoon).

Once we get it out of that shipping box, the device itself features a nice presentation.  Like the iPhone and iPod Touch, the box features a mockup of the actual device, which is probably nice for those of you who stumbled into Best Buy hoping to find one.  

Open the box, and there she sits in all her glory, nicely wrapped in plastic (sorry for that reflection).  This is really nice because it ensures the screen remains clean until you are ready to use it.  I only wish I could have kept that plastic on, because this screen is a forensic investigator’s dream device…a fingerprint magnet.  I suspect I will be giving Zagg a call sometime in the near future to invest in some of their Invisible Shields.

Under the device are all of the same accessories you would expect from Apple.  You get the iPad sync/charge cable, which appears to be the same cable as the iPod Touch and iPhone.  This is great because it means there is a good chance your iPhone accessories could work with the iPad. 

You will also find an AC adaptor,which has a removable head, presumably so you can swap on a European adaptor.  Though I have never seen a European adaptor head for sale, so I am not sure exactly where to get a replacement head for this, but it is nice to know that you theoretically could do so if you needed to.

The controls should come as no surprise to anyone who has used an iPhone or ipod Touch in the past.  On the face, there is the home button.  On the upper right hand corner, you will find the power/sleep button, screen rotate lock, and volume controls.  I thought it was odd that they moved the controls from the upper left (where they were located on the iPhone and iPod Touch) to the upper right.  I am not sure what precipitated this decision, but I will admit that I have been reaching for the wrong corner of the device all evening.

Other than its status as a massive fingerprint magnet, I was really very impressed by the screen.  It is large, bright, and clear.  We’ll take a closer look at it later when I look closer at the video functionality.  All I wanted to say tonight is that this screen makes my iPod Touch look small and dim in comparison.

So far, after a little less than 10 hours, I am pretty impressed by what I have seen from this device.  I would not be ready to call it magical…or revolutionary.  I will say, however, that it is everything I was expecting, and I am really excited to get deeper into it.  Which brings me to what you can expect to find here on JAMM.  I am sure many of you will read traditional reviews (or already have read them) on any number of sites.  So, I wanted to take a different approach.  I am going to test the iPad with all of the functionality I expect it to replace (eBooks, Word Processing, email, games, and so on), and I will come back here and report on each function individually.  This should turn into something which is less of a review, and more of a practical user experience.  We’ll see where it takes us.  In the meantime, if there are any features you want to make sure we cover, or any other questions you would like answered, write in through the comments and we will take a look.

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