Bring on the Lamingtons, Australia got the new iPad first! Too bad it doesn’t do 4G here. Maybe that’s why queues were clearly down. Gizmodo hit the streets of Sydney for Telstra’s midnight opening, while just across the road Apple faithful quietly considered an unexpected twist. Buy a $30 Telstra prepaid stater pack and they could grab the iPad outright (not on a plan) long before Apple opens at 8am. What’s an iPad camper to do?
Personally, that sounds better to me than parking my arse on a footpath all night. But to each their own. Some Apple Store queuers had grabbed Telstra waiting numbers, and by 12:30am had begun to be served. Telstra was really only officially pushing its plan-based iPad purchases, but the outright option was still there, albeit limited to one per person.
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First in line at Telstra was David from Cheltenham in Sydney (pictured at far top). He joined those who were first in line at Telstra’s Melbourne store and a few Big W locations overnight.
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Despite the lack of LTE support in Australia, a Telstra rep told Giz that the new iPad’s support for dual-channel HSPA+ should still provide a data boost: specifically allowing speeds between 1- and 20Mbps with a coverage area of about 60 per cent of the population. In other areas, single channel HSPA+ is rated between 1 and 8Mbps. As you’d expect, we’ll be testing the new device’s speeds as soon as possible.
Also expect a full hands-on evaluation from Alex on Friday, once I’ve passed on the new iPad I have in my hot little hands right now. All I’ve done so far is set it up out of the box, and yep, that screen does look inviting. But so do the 28+ new Android tablets we’ve heard about. And so does my bed. Sleepy time.
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