The 128GB iPad with retina display is on sale today, giving those of you with at least £639 going spare the opportunity to nab Apple's roomiest tablet yet.
As promised by Tim Cook and pals, from this very day (5 February), you can buy the capacious gadget, which is identical to Apple's existing iPad with retina display in every respect other than storage space.
£639 gets you the Wi-Fi only version -- if you want the option to gambol about town with a SIM-card stuffed in your slate you'll need to the 3G option, which costs a wince-inducing £739.
Apple's UK site currently lists dispatch times as 1-3 business days for both models, whereas other size variations are simply tagged as 'in stock'. It'll be interesting to see if that delivery estimate climbs -- an indicator that shoppers are eager to throw down cash for this ludicrously costly slab.
"You would just buy a Mac"
Pricey Apple gadgets are nothing new, and there's no doubt that the iPad has generated enormous mountains of cash for the Californian company. This latest iteration may be just too much for ordinary shoppers to swallow, however. "Definitely too expensive," one commenter wrote on our Facebook wall when the prices were announced.
"I don't see the need in a 128GB tablet," another wrote on the original article. "In my eyes a tablet is not a laptop replacement."
"Use iCloud and iTunes Match sensibly and you don't need 128GB," one says, while another reader accurately notes. "You can get a MacBook Air for not much more."
When we posed the question today our loyal readers were hardly more sympathetic. "FAR too expensive!!!" one exclaims. "Way too overpriced as usual," another complains. "No thanks!!!" one vents. "Pointless," another condemns.
"I wouldn't say it's overpriced as it's built from quality components," one post reasonably begins, "and the design and innovation of the iPad is something no company can match, but why you would need 128GB for an iPad I don't know. You would just buy a Mac."
It seems folks aren't too impressed by Apple's new toy, then. Perhaps the aluminium-coated company hopes to flog the 128GB in bulk to companies or schools, rather than individual tablet-buyers.
Are you rubbing your mitts together at the thought of a 128GB iPad, or would you rather spend £160 and get Google's Nexus 7? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook wall.
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Comments 19
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anonymous 5 February, 2013 15:15
There's a market for it. You might be going on holiday and want to stock up on your movies for you and your kids
But if your the type of person to buy this then you will probably be in the vicinity of free wi-fi...but it's a convenience thing.
I'm a bit surprised though...I though low storage was a tactical thing to encourage everyone to use cloud and getting more dependent on whatever ecosystem. I would rather have more storage then use cloud rubbish though...shame they charge such a premium for extra gb's when you can get a 32gb micro sd for like £15
Peter Hudson 5 February, 2013 15:23
Same here, call me old fashioned but I would rather store my music library locally to listen to rather than use iCloud. And my music library takes over 70GB so a 128GB iPad sounds good to me. When I go to replace my 3rd gen iPad in a year or so I'll definitely get the higher capacity one.
shauney3 5 February, 2013 15:40
Why do you need to store 70GB of music on an iPad? If you had money to burn I'd understand, but if it becomes a requirement then stupidity is taking over...
Nexus 7 (£160) + USB-on-the-Go cable (£6) + app (£1) = unlimited storage as you can connect as many flash drives as you want. It's not too practical mind.
I have 10,000ish songs on Google cloud. Can access almost it anywhere with 3G. Clous is the way to go.
anonymous 5 February, 2013 16:39
Don't forget that it's not just private individuals buying these devices. These are business devices too with all sorts of purposes in all sorts of industries. I'm sure Apple know this won't be as big a seller as a 16Gb model, but there's still a market for them.
anonymous 5 February, 2013 16:43
@shauney3
On that logic....why do you need a tablet at all?
People have different needs& wants and they put different values on them.
I think a 128gb ipad is amazing but the personal value I put on it is £450. (considering I got the discontinued retina ipad for £315) It's not worth the £639 for me but it may be for others.
Damien2701 5 February, 2013 16:44
I see the point about going on holiday but how often is that? for most people once a yr. Most of the time a tablet is a companion to a PC. That is why companies are making hybrids to try and bridge that gap.
anonymous 5 February, 2013 17:14
Anon: 15.15..
Stock up on movies? 128gb worth of movies? That's about 100 movies. If you're going somewhere where you need 100 movies then you should go somewhere better...maybe you should have spent more on your holiday and less on this stupid thing.
anonymous 5 February, 2013 17:16
Peter Hudson:
You ARE old fashioned; you use an iPad. Get with the times lad.
anonymous 5 February, 2013 17:16
If Steve was around he would not allow such stupidity at random times.
At least wait for the new models. This also goes for when the just put the iPad 4 out there for the sake of a new connector. C'mon guys fix up.
anonymous 5 February, 2013 17:19
If your holiday needs you to take so many movies with you you need 128gb of storage then get a better travel agent.
Why are you watching so many movies on holiday? And why are you watching them all on a little 10 inch screen? What world do you people live in? If you're on holiday in any sort of hotel then even if you do need this many films, take a media drive and plug it into the HDMI socket. They cost about £20.
anonymous 5 February, 2013 19:08
Just buy a Samsung Tablet and a micro SD card for half the price?
Amazing what people will do just to conform to a brand identity. Apple have made me weep for humanity since the early 2000s when people obsessed over the hugely over rated iPod. It then got worse when people started buying iBooks and MacBooks and looking down their noses at PC users. Now some people are convinced that paying this much for a 128gb iPad makes sense? We talk about recession but people are throwing money away like this. Crazy.
Damien2501 5 February, 2013 19:20
@ Peter Hudson The music you listen to on your tablet is it in MP3 or is it music video's? I simply cannot believe someone has that much music.
And I think a 128 GB iPad is a brilliant idea! There is clearly demand for this product, if people are buying it and are willing to pay that much for it, who cares? Plus, it's helping sustain the Chinese economy, keeping hundreds of thousands of people at work.
Howard10000 5 February, 2013 19:24
Look, I've just got to have one of these just to show that I have more money than you.
Do they write '128GB Elite Special' in Size 70 Font on the Back of the tablet?
If they could attach a large price tag that I could dangle about on the tube, that would be even better.
anonymous 5 February, 2013 23:38
People seem very offended that someone may want to use a 128gb ipad....and not want to use the precious cloud
£639 is not worth it for me...but there is a bit of an untapped market,,,,maybe this will spur other manufacturers to include 50gb+ options on more devices and eventually drive prices for that 'premium' down.
anonymous 6 February, 2013 07:00
Some people may want lots of storage, but at that price only the Apple faithful would be interested.
I wouldn't agree that corporates would be interested in this, content on tablet devices tends to come from web services. Businesses tend to store information centrally, so why would a corporation be storing large amounts of data on a tablet device?
anonymous 6 February, 2013 08:06
At last 128gb iPad is here.. My first upgrade since iPad 2 64gb. I honestly cannot believe the nonsense I read about 'we dont need 128gb'. Rubbish. I have almost 30gb of APPS alone. Many are not sync'd with my pathetic 64gb ipad because i cant get much else on it if I do. Most driving games are at least 500mb. Cyclopedia is what 1.2GB? Garageband over a 1GB. My big thing is movies and i want a library of choice OFFLINE. Lets stop talking about iCloud people. They charge for every 5GB, we have THE worst 3G network, let alone dreams of 4G, so seriously, when you're out and about, how are you supposed to switch your content around. Lets face it, it STILL makes sense to have your device loaded with native content. 128GB is £80 more than the 64GB? WIFI? Bargain.
anonymous 6 February, 2013 09:31
My firm will be buying a couple as we work rurally. We tried using acer and Samsung tabs but the acer fell apart (Litterally!) and the Samsungs although nice didnt have enough power to render, scale and draw everything before power ran out. Went back to the older pads. But for I home user? Probably quite excessive.
anonymous 6 February, 2013 11:29
anonymous 6 February, 2013 07:00
"Businesses tend to store information centrally, so why would a corporation be storing large amounts of data on a tablet device?"
Because business can take place in places with no or slow connectivity (and there will be instances where 4G isn't the answer either). I'm thinking along the lines of product demo videos or tools that can visualise a customer's personalised configuration (e.g. a kitchen or a car). These types of application use hi-def assets (i.e. images/video), which takes up a lot of space. Whether you need 128Gb depends on the complexity of what you're trying to do, but there is definitely a market for it in the corporate space.
anonymous 6 February, 2013 12:57
I would definitely wait for the new model but yes. I see the point of increased storage - but not at this price point!!! With good brand micro SD card costing sub £20, the choices will favour Android with it's plethora of devices that offer SD expandability.