iPad-to buy or not to buy 32GB?

[Pippaandpolly]

I'm thinking of buying DH an iPad for Christmas but don't know which one. We don't (and, for a variety of reasons, can't) have wifi at home so this means it would need to be 3G. Would we then need a contract for that? (Am seeing the expenses totting up!) He would probably use it mostly for the internet, emails, music and films. I have a 16GB iPhone 4s and have used about 13GB with my apps and music. This suggests to me that 16GB wouldn't really be enough for an iPad then-right? Am I looking at a 3G 32GB with a pricey contract? So about £550 plus contract? I can afford it by saving like crazy between now and Christmas (and I guess I'd be mean and the contract would go in his name-bit odd to give someone a present and then tell them it'll cost £X per month?! Don't know how much they are.) but it does seem like an awful lot of money. Are the 16GB ones worth it at all? Don't want to spend £500 and then regret not spending a little bit more to get much better functionality but equally don't want to waste money on unnecessary GB!

Thanks for any advice :)

And much as I LOVE Angry Birds and Cut the Rope, I would not pay £400 for the priviledge.

I use my iPhone a lot and have 1GB of data in my calling plan. I don't download games or films but I do download music and spend a lot of time online (especially on Mumsnet as my phone doesn't block naughty words!!), on Facebook, Twitter etc. I imagine DH would mostly want to be on the internet (he has a Skyrim forum he's almost as obsessed with as I am with Mumsnet!), emails, Facebook and would also want to download films for when he's travelling. He's not a gamer really-apps like solitaire (and one player Xbox games) more than internet games. With the Three 10GB contract he'd presumably be able to do these things, though maybe have to wait for wifi places to download stuff?

Is the general consensus that a wifi+3G version would be worth it, or not do you think?

Vodafone do them cheap or free on contract, I paid £100 for my 64gb one wifi and 3g one and its £32 a month

I think if there was ever a good example of why filtering is a bad one, then OP's experience is one to hold up.

"I do download music and spend a lot of time online ... would also want to download films for when he's travelling"

This will depend upon the speed that you get in your area and your download allowance.

For example if you get 1Mb/s as an actual practical download speed. So 1Mb = 1,000,000 bits = 125,000 bytes = 122KB = 0.11MB.

An iTunes song can be about 8MB, so that'll take a minute to download, not too bad, if the network speed holds up.

A new movie, Thor for example, is 1.62GB, which would take about 4 hours to download.

And then there's your download limit, compare that 1.62GB to what you'll be buying, you won't get many movies a month that's for sure.

"Facebook, Twitter"

On the other hand I find that the apps for those work really pretty well on a 3G network, so that sort of stuff should be fine on it.

Ok, so it looks like any film downloading would need to wait for a wifi area but otherwise a 10GB contract with Three will cover everything else. Right, am decided! Thank you for your help!