What's in that brown box Dad?

Last weekend I went to Curry's. I handed over a not-inconsiderable amount of cash and vouchers and left with a brown box. Quite a heavy brown box for it's size. When I got home, the kids were fascinated. "What's in the box?", "Is it a present for me?". No, my dear children, it's a present for ME.

So what was in the box? Another not-so-brown box!

Inside the cellophane wrapped white box was this little item:

Now, look at the design. Even in the box, Apple have excelled themselves. The little plastic tab you can see at the bottom of the picture lets you lift the iPad out of the box without any risk to it (the box is very tight around it.) The iPad itself is wrapped in a thick cellophane wrapper too and the same plastic tab lets you easy begin the unwrapping process. Underneath the iPad itself, the box contains:

• 2 Amp Power supply plug and block
• USB Dock cable
• Apple Documentation and Warranty card
• Two Apple Logo Stickers (I have loads of these now!)

Just a note on the power supply. You can't use an iPhone power supply to charge an iPad. The iPhone draws 1 amp and the iPad requires 2 amps. In theory, the iPad charger will charge an iPhone without any problems - YMMV!

I'm really no idea how my iPad feels without a case, because I removed the cellophane, handed it to my wife to have a look at it.

(My wife will kill me for putting her on my blog, but how can I resist two beauties in one picture?)

The first job is to press and hold the power button and get the iPad booting up. It really won't do much until you connect it to iTunes and register it against your account.

After I'd got the iPad talking to iTunes, I shut it down and installed my 3G SIM. If you have an iPhone, you'll be familiar with the SIM slot. You need to use the special ejection tool to remove the SIM carrier. The iPad uses a Micro SIM card which is even smaller than the usual mobile phone SIM.

I have had a mobile broadband SIM for nearly two and half years. Because I was quite an early adopter, I have an awesome deal that you don't seem to be able to get anymore. There is really very little chance that I will use all 15GB in a month even using my iPad constantly...

Before buying the iPad, I spoke to Three's technical support and they told me that I couldn't use the Mini SIM in my iPad (i knew that!) and that I needed to go to a Three store to change my account to an iPad plan. These are not as good as my plan, so I wasn't keen on this. However, I happened to be in Reading, so I went to the Three store. The girl there just gave me a new Micro SIM on my current account plan for free!. Perhaps I have a nice smile?! Winner!

I split my new Micro SIM out of the carrier (as in the photo) and popped it in. It's working perfectly... Thanks three technical support for worrying me!

After checking that the iPad worked, I immediately put it in the Snugg iPad case that I bought to go with it. I didn't go with the standard Apple Case for two reasons. Firstly, the Apple case has a certain look to it that muggers will soon learn to recognise like those white headphones that come with the iPod. And secondly, the case I bought looked very smart and solid when a colleague showed me one he'd bought to replace the Apple One he's only had since March.

I've had my iPad precisely a week and covered a lot of ground with it. Suffice it to say for now that I am totally in love with the thing. It's well worth the money and has completely overcome all the cynical feelings I had before my purchase. It's saved me from traffic jams, allowed me to entertain myself on the train, been to meetings for note taking and entertained my kids. More to come, but I think I should update my blog title to iPad Zealot too.