My new pad

I am now the proud owner of a pad - not an iPad, but a LifePad, from Aldi. Yes, that's the store with the cheap food because they buy in bulk and don't have fancy stores. They tend to have quite good computer stuff, actually, because they also buy them in bulk. The last time I didn't buy an Aldi computer I cursed for months and had the stupid box back in the shop twice before it was finally tamed.

Anyway - went to my local Aldi, they still had them available at 9 am for 399 €. Popped the box at home - wow, what an assortment of cables. I'm going to need a new cable purse for this! And for 14,95 € I can buy a pink case for it. If this works even half heartedly, I'll pop for the pink.

Out of the box, looks nice, a bit hefty, but sits nicely in my hand. Hook up the electricity, this will be the first problem, as the socket is symmetric. The cable is labelled - actually, everything is labelled to perfection - with a big "TOP" sticker.

Turn it on, and after a bit of booting it's there. The volume control thingys stick out a bit too much for my taste, and getting the SIM card in, even with the little paperclip things they deliver for those who have no paper clips, entailed me having to take off my glasses for a closeup look in order to figure it out.

The installation went flawlessly, although I do have a Google account already set up for my Android smartphone. I dug through the Android market and pulled down my favorite apps. Easy as pie. Found a fantastic handball app with the scores for the entire leagues in Europe.

There's a leather-like case, not the cute folding triangle thing that the iPad has, but nice enough. The only problem up until now is the greasy fingerprints. I cleaned the screen and put on the screensaver, that didn't work too well, there are a few bubbles although I really tried to keep it flat using a ruler. The little pull-tab things on the screensaver didn't come off cleanly, but that will surely sort itself out.

So the test will be this afternoon, I'm taking it to the doctor's office with me. If I can grade the exam using it, or actually write some text, it wins. Stay tuned.