I am not going to do a full review of the new iPad. There are plenty of better writers who have had it for over a week who are much better qualified than me for that. Instead I will just list a few initial thoughts that I have after using it for a few hours today.

• The screen really is amazing. Text looks great and pictures really stand out. I hated the grid of album covers in the new iOS 5 Music app, but with the new display it actually looks really nice.

• Apps that have not been optimized for retina still look terrible. Luckily, if they are Universal then the app icons are not too bad because they appear to use the retina iPhone icon instead of the normal iPad one.

• LTE is fast. I am using AT&T and was getting download speeds of 16 Mbps with upload speeds of 7 Mbps. Download speeds are comparable to my Wifi, but upload speeds are way faster on LTE.

• Charging takes forever. I may be because apps are still downloading, but the iPad has been plugged in for a couple of hours and the percentage is unchanged.

• The increased thickness is not really noticeable, but the weight is. I was able to tell it was heavier right as I first lifted it out of it’s box. It may make reading slightly more uncomfortable, but I imagine will get used to it just fine since I used to use my original iPad for reading quite a bit with no complaints.

• This is kinda old news, but upgrading by using an iCloud backup is way better than the old method of plugging into iTunes.

• I went with a white one for the same reason I went with a white iPhone 4S: I wanted it to look different on the outside. I ended up liking the white iPhone a lot better than the black. Jury is still out on the iPad, but it is okay so far.

• I don’t think Apple should even offer a 16GB iPad anymore. With app sizes getting bigger because of Retina screens and movies and TV shows from the app store coming in 1080P, a normal user could fill up a 16GB iPad easily.

Overall, I am happy with the update. The screen alone was worth the upgrade and having LTE will be great when working from Starbucks (which I do a lot). Hopefully AT&T will start offering tethering soon so I can run my MacBook Air on LTE when I am out too.