So an iPad turned up at work last week, and I got to have a bit of a play. Here are my first impressions, and some pics and video.

iPad

What better way to write about the Nexus One, than on the Nexus One itself?

But first, a little history.

Until a few days ago, I had had a Nokia E61i, my then favourite phone of all time. Full QUERTY keyboard, S60 OS power, good 3G and E-mail, but most of all my loyal companion for many years.

For a short while (while that was out of commission) I had had an original iPhone; I found that a rather painful device, as my numerous posts on the subject gently hint at.

And last Thursday we embarked on the next phase – a Nexus One appeared on my desk.

Here’s my thoughts on the phone, having had it in my hands for a few short days.

So here it is, the unboxing of the Nexus One.

More about what I think of the phone itself are to come soon; but this is just a really early glance at the device. I couldn’t even turn it on for a few hours because it was charging (and I was supposed to be working).

Couple of things I will say for it though; first of all its a truly stunning piece of hardware. It also gave my camera an extremely hard time because it is so shiny and there was so much light – so excuse the slightly blurry ones.

The packaging was excellent too, very sturdy, well put together and thoughtful throughout. I liked the Google 4-colour accents around the bottom rim of the box – a nice touch.

Without further ado, on to the gallery!

I’ve had my little Dell Mini 9 “netbook” (I hate that term… let’s call it a “subnotebook”?) for just over half a year now, and I have to say I am really really enjoying using it.

There has been a real market shift in recent years – powered by the chip makers producing more energy efficient and powerful processors – towards smaller laptops. The Mini 9 is just about as small as you can get here without getting ridiculous.

So it’s the morning after another massive Apple announcement. The dust has settled, the fanboys have washed their underwear, and the public are taking their first look through the misty sunrise at the fabled Apple Tablet.

First impressions of the blogosphere and Twitter, however, were generally negative. #iTampon is still a (mocking) Trending Topic in the UK.

The cause of most of this negativity seems to be that the iPad is not doing things people wanted it to do, or suitably replacing other devices they wanted it to.

But as Steve Jobs said yesterday, the iPad is not about replacing your existing devices; it’s an entirely new paradigm in computing.

Here’s why people who expect the iPad to replace various devices in their lives have got entirely the wrong idea.