Returning Your iPad? You Are Not Alone

After weeks of hype and perhaps a bit of peer pressure, most people that picked up an iPad did so sight unseen. Most, if not all, had previous experience with the iPhone which runs the same basic OS and everyone knew that. Still, with the larger size that is closer to a PC tablet than a smartphone, the expectations may have been different enough that after forking over between $499 and $699, buyer's remorse has set in.

Ed Hansberry, Contributor

April 9, 2010

2 Min Read
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After weeks of hype and perhaps a bit of peer pressure, most people that picked up an iPad did so sight unseen. Most, if not all, had previous experience with the iPhone which runs the same basic OS and everyone knew that. Still, with the larger size that is closer to a PC tablet than a smartphone, the expectations may have been different enough that after forking over between $499 and $699, buyer's remorse has set in.Betanews has comments from seven relatively famous people that are in the process of returning their device. Yes, you have two weeks from the day you purchased it to return it, minus a 10% restocking fee.

What were some of the reasons? Michelle Alexandra, actress and producer, is returning hers for some strange reasons - price gouging and lack of a 3G connection. This I do not get. She knew the price before she purchased it and also knew that 3G devices were going to be out a month or so later, at even higher prices.

However, she is also returning it for a more reasonable reason - lack of multitasking. Apparently she wants to read quite a bit on the device and wanted to get content for the USA Today app, the Kindle app, the iBook app and more. Her problem is, while downloading, you can't do anything else. You have to sit there and watch it download because if you start another app, your download stops. That may be more acceptable on an iPhone where the screen is smaller and you don't necessarily expect multitasking, but on larger screen devices, like your PC, you are used to doing multiple things. The large screen just lends itself to it.

Nick O'Neill, founder of SocialTimes.com, returned his simply because it "isn't magical and it isn't revolutionary." He bought into the hype and reality let him down. I can appreciate that. To read some of the blogs on the iPad by people who saw it early you'd have thought it was the one device to rule them all.

Check out the article to see some of the other reasons the device was returned by five more people. If you've purchased an iPad, are you drop-dead happy with it, satisfied or are you in the process of putting it back in the box?

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