翻译:Walt Mossberg关于iPad的评测
原文:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304252704575155982711410678.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us
我花了一点时间翻译了一下,理科生做翻译,不靠谱。。。摇头。。。不靠谱。。。欢迎来抽。
Laptop Killer? Pretty Close
笔记本杀手?八九不离十
For the past week or so, I have been testing a sleek, light, silver-and-black tablet computer called an iPad. After spending hours and hours with it, I believe this beautiful new touch-screen device from Apple has the potential to change portable computing profoundly, and to challenge the primacy of the laptop. It could even help, eventually, to propel the finger-driven, multitouch user interface ahead of the mouse-driven interface that has prevailed for decades.
过去一周内,我一直在测试一台轻薄的银黑色平板电脑:iPad。花了不少时间来摆弄它以后,我开始相信,这个苹果最新出品的漂亮的触摸屏设备将会改变平板电脑市场,并撼动笔记本电脑的地位。甚至将推动多点触控的指点界面的普及,彻底颠覆统治了几十年的鼠标界面。
But first, it will have to prove that it really can replace the laptop or netbook for enough common tasks, enough of the time, to make it a viable alternative. And that may not be easy, because previous tablet computers have failed to catch on in the mass market, and the iPad lacks some of the features—such as a physical keyboard, a Webcam, USB ports and multitasking—that most laptop or netbook users have come to expect.
但是首先,它必须证明它真的可以完成笔记本电脑或上网本上的日常任务。这并不容易,考虑到平板电脑之前的失败,以及iPad本身缺少一些特性—-比如缺少实体键盘,摄像头,USB口,以及多任务—–大多数笔记本或上网本用户需要这些。
If people see the iPad mainly as an extra device to carry around, it will likely have limited appeal. If, however, they see it as a way to replace heavier, bulkier computers much of the time—for Web surfing, email, social-networking, video- and photo-viewing, gaming, music and even some light content creation—it could be a game changer the way Apple’s iPhone has been.
如果只是将iPad用作对现有计算机的辅助设备,那么iPad的吸引力就很有限了。但如果大多数时间里,人们能将iPad用作又肥又重的电脑的替代品——–上网,收发邮件,社交网络,浏览图片视频,玩游戏,听音乐,以及一些简单的文档编辑——那么它就有可能成为iPhone一样的新的游戏规则制定者。
The iPad is much more than an e-book or digital periodical reader, though it does those tasks brilliantly, better in my view than the Amazon Kindle. And it’s far more than just a big iPhone, even though it uses the same easy-to-master interface, and Apple says it runs nearly all of the 150,000 apps that work on the iPhone.
iPad并不只是一台电子书/杂志阅读器,尽管它在这方面做得远比亚马逊的Kindle漂亮。它也不仅仅是一个大号的iPhone,尽管用户界面很类似,并且可以直接运行iPhone程序。
It’s qualitatively different, a whole new type of computer that, through a simple interface, can run more-sophisticated, PC-like software than a phone does, and whose large screen allows much more functionality when compared with a phone’s. But, because the iPad is a new type of computer, you have to feel it, to use it, to fully understand it and decide if it is for you, or whether, say, a netbook might do better.
它截然不同,它是一种全新类型的设备,界面简单,但是可以运行和PC一样的,更复杂的软件;更大的屏幕也保证了它可以提供更多的功能。针对这样一种全新的东西,评价它的唯一办法就是去感受它,理解它,然后才能说,它是不是适合你,或者说,它是不是比上网本更好。
So I’ve been using my test iPad heavily day and night, instead of my trusty laptops most of the time. As I got deeper into it, I found the iPad a pleasure to use, and had less and less interest in cracking open my heavier ThinkPad or MacBook. I probably used the laptops about 20% as often as normal, reserving them mainly for writing or editing longer documents, or viewing Web videos in Adobe’s Flash technology, which the iPad doesn’t support, despite its wide popularity online.
因此我暂时放弃了我的笔记本电脑,尝试长时间使用看起来不怎么靠谱的iPad。随着我使用iPad越来越多,我发现这玩意用起来越来越舒服,跑去打开我的ThinkPad或MacBook的冲动也越来越小。有了iPad以后,我使用笔记本的时间是原来的20%,只有在撰写修改长篇大论的文档时,或者需要看Adobe Flash(iPad不支持Flash)的时候,才会发现笔记本更好用。
My verdict is that, while it has compromises and drawbacks, the iPad can indeed replace a laptop for most data communication, content consumption and even limited content creation, a lot of the time. But it all depends on how you use your computer.
我的结论是,尽管设计上有不少缺点甚至逆技术而动,iPad大部分时间里依然的确可以替代笔记本,交换数据,内容消费,甚至简单的内容创作。但这一点和你是使用电脑的习惯息息相关。
If you’re mainly a Web surfer, note-taker, social-networker and emailer, and a consumer of photos, videos, books, periodicals and music—this could be for you. If you need to create or edit giant spreadsheets or long documents, or you have elaborate systems for organizing email, or need to perform video chats, the iPad isn’t going to cut it as your go-to device.
如果你使用电脑主要是网页浏览,记录笔记,社交网络,收发邮件,看照片,视频,电子书,电子期刊,听音乐——-iPad就是为你准备的。如果你经常编辑大型的电子表格和文档,需要更强大的邮件功能,或者进行视频聊天,那么iPad不适合你。
The iPad is thinner and lighter than any netbook or laptop I’ve seen. It weighs just 1.5 pounds, and its aluminum and glass body is a mere half-inch thick. It boasts a big, bright color 9.7-inch screen that occupies most of the front. As on all Apple portable devices, the battery is sealed in and nonreplaceable. It has a decent speaker, and even a tiny microphone.
iPad要我我见过的任何上网本或笔记本都轻薄。重量仅1.5磅,铝和玻璃制造的机身仅半英寸厚,9.7英寸的屏幕在大部分角度看上去颜色艳丽。和大多数苹果出品的移动设备一样,电池是内置的并且无法更换。它有个不错的喇叭和一个小麦克风。
Memory, also sealed in and nonexpandable, ranges from 16 gigabytes to 64 gigabytes. And you can order one with just a Wi-Fi wireless connection to the Internet, or Wi-Fi plus an AT&T 3G cellular connection. The Wi-Fi models will be available Saturday and the 3G models, which I didn’t test, about a month later.
存储内存内置在机器中,无法更换升级,选择范围从最小16G到最大64G。订购时你可以选择只要WIFI功能或者同时有WIFI和3G网络连接。WIFI型号的iPad将在这周六有售,但是3G型号的(我还没机会测试一下)要等到下个月。
Prices start at $499 and go to $829, with the costlier models having more memory and/or 3G. The cellular models don’t require a contract or termination fee. You can pay AT&T either $15 a month for 250 megabytes of data use, or $30 a month for unlimited data—a significant reduction from typical prices for laptop cellular connectivity.
价格最低499美元最高829美元,区别在于内存大小和是否有3G连接。3G版本的iPad并不需要和运营商签约,也没有提前结束合约造成的费用。AT&T提供250MB/15元每月,或者不限流量/30元每月两种选择————比一般的套餐要便宜很多。
I was impressed with the iPad’s battery life, which I found to be even longer than Apple’s ten-hour claim, and far longer than on my laptops or smart phones. For my battery test, I played movies, TV shows and other videos back-to-back until the iPad died. This stressed the device’s most power-hogging feature, its screen. The iPad lasted 11 hours and 28 minutes, about 15% more than Apple claimed. I was able to watch four feature-length movies, four TV episodes and a video of a 90-minute corporate presentation, before the battery died midway through an episode of "The Closer."
iPad的电池使用时间让我印象深刻,它甚至长于苹果官方声称的10小时,远胜于我的笔记本和智能手机。我通过一遍遍地播放电影,电视剧和其他视频,来测试电池。这对设备最耗电的部分—屏幕—是个考验。iPad坚持了11小时28分钟,比官方申明时间长了15%。我观看了四部电影,四部电视剧,一部90分钟长的公司演示视频,最后在“The Closer”放到一半的时候,没电了。
Oh, and all the while during this battery marathon, I kept the Wi-Fi network running and the email downloading constantly in the background. Your mileage may vary, but with Wi-Fi off and the screen turned down from the fairly bright level I used, you might even do better. Music plays far longer with the screen off. On the other hand, playing games constantly might yield worse battery life.
在电池马拉松测试过程中,我还一直开着WIFI链接,让系统在后台下载邮件。实际产品的待机时间可能会稍有不同,但相信关闭WIFI链接,并调低屏幕亮度,你应该会得到更长的待机时间。播放音乐的时候,关闭屏幕可以延长电池使用时间。对应的,玩游戏会降低待机时间。
Apple says video playback, Web use and book reading all take about the same amount of juice. When I was doing the latter two tasks for an hour or two at a time, the battery ran down so slowly for me that I stopped thinking about it.
苹果声称,播放视频,网页浏览和读书所消耗的电量是一样的。我试了一下后两者,电池消耗速度之慢,让我放弃了测试的念头。
I also was impressed with the overall speed of the iPad. Apple’s custom processor makes it wicked fast. Screens appear almost instantly, and the Wi-Fi in my home tested as fast as it does on a laptop.
我也吃惊于iPad飞快的响应速度。苹果自制的处理器让它运作如飞。唤醒屏幕几乎是一瞬,WIFI的速度和笔记本电脑一样快。
I found email easy and productive to use, and had no trouble typing accurately and quickly on the iPad’s wide on-screen keyboard. In fact, I found the iPad virtual keyboard more comfortable and accurate to use than the cramped keyboards and touchpads on many netbooks, though some fast touch typists might disagree. Apple’s $39 iPad case, which bends to set up a nice angle for typing, helps.
电子邮件很容易使用,效率奇高,在屏幕虚拟键盘输入时,没有遇到任何困难,又快又准。实际上,我觉得iPad的虚拟键盘要比一些上网本粗制滥造的键盘和触控板好得多,不过这一点未必人人同意。我使用了iPad的盒子(售价39美元)来撑住iPad以帮助打字。
The Web browser also works beautifully, and takes advantage of the big screen to show full pages and cut down on scrolling. It even now has a bookmarks bar at the top. As noted, however, it doesn’t support Adobe’s Flash technology.
浏览器用起来很不错,大屏幕可以显示全页面,用手指可以翻页。浏览器顶部增加了收藏夹工具栏。和官方声明的一样,它不支持Adobe的Flash技术。
I also was able to easily sync the iPad’s calendar and contacts apps with Google and Apple’s MobileMe.
我很轻松地就学会了如何在iPad与Google App或苹果的ModileMe之间同步日程表和通讯录。
Watching videos, viewing photos, listening to music, reading books and playing games was satisfying and fun. I used the device heavily for Twitter and Facebook. And I even got some light work done in the optional iPad word processor, called Pages, which is part of a $30 suite that also includes a spreadsheet and presentation program.
观看视频,照片,听音乐,读书,玩游戏,都让人满意,并且很有趣。在iPad上我还经常玩Twitter和Facebook。我甚至在iPad上用苹果的字处理软件Pages写了一些文档,Pages包含在一个30元的办公软件套装中,此套装还支持电子表格和演示文档。
This is a serious content creation app that should help the iPad compete with laptops and can import Microsoft Office files. However, only the word processor exports to Microsoft’s formats, and not always accurately. In one case, the exported Word file had misaligned text. When I then tried exporting the document as a PDF file, it was unreadable.
这个软件套装用于创建严肃的商业文档,将帮助iPad与笔记本争夺用户。它能导入微软的Office格式的文档,但只有字处理能导出为Office格式,而且经常出现格式错误。我遇到了文字对齐错误的问题。我尝试导出为PDF文档,结果发现导出的文档完全不可用。
The iPad can run two types of third-party apps, both available from Apple’s app store. It can use nearly all existing iPhone apps. These can either run in a small, iPhone-size window in the middle of the screen, which makes them look tiny, or blown up to double size. The larger size makes them fill the screen, but can make type inside them look blocky. Still, the dozens I tested all worked properly. And it can run a new class of specially designed iPad apps, of which Apple hopes to have 1,000 at launch. I successfully tested the revamped App Store, which features the iPad apps most prominently when you’re on an iPad.
在苹果的App网上商店中为iPad提供两种应用程序。一种是原有的iPhone程序。它们可以运行在一个iPad屏幕中央的小窗口中,看起来非常小。也可以使用全屏模式,但因为放大了看起来有点古怪。我测试了不少iphone程序,所有的都运行良好。另一种是专为iPad设计的程序,苹果希望在发售日就能吸引到一千个这样的程序。我还在试用了重新设计过的苹果App网上商店,在iPad上看起来相当不错。
Based on my very small sample, some app developers may be testing higher prices for iPad apps than the 99 cents or $1.99 typical for paid iPhone apps. The paid iPad apps I saw ranged from $3.99 to $49.99. Others were free.
在我看到的一小部分的App程序中,一些开发者正在尝试比iPhone较高的定价,iPhone程序一般定价为0.99或1.99元,而iPad程序的定价为3.99到49.99元。当然也有不少免费的应用。
Apple has rebuilt its own core iPhone apps for the iPad to add sophisticated features that make the programs look and work more like PC or Mac software. For instance, there are "popover" menus that make it easier to make choices without leaving the screen you’re on. And, when the iPad is held horizontally, in landscape mode, as I often preferred to use it, many programs now have two panels, making them faster and more useful. For example, in email, a left-hand panel shows your message list, while a larger right-hand panel shows the message itself.
苹果重新设计了第一方的iPhone程序,让他们在iPad上工作得更好,看起来更像PC或Mac程序。比如说,“弹出式”菜单让用户不用离开当前界面即可做出选择。我更习惯于横着摆放我的iPad,在这一模式下很多程序都设计了两个竖式窗口,让他们操作起来又快又好用。比如说邮件程序,左手边是邮件列表,右手边则显示邮件内容。
The photo app is striking, and much more like the one on the Mac than the one on the iPhone. The device can even be used as a digital picture frame. The iPod app is beautiful, too, as are the calendar and contacts app. Unfortunately, Apple excluded some of the more familiar apps from the iPhone, including Weather, Clock and Stocks.
照片程序很靓,设计类似于iPhone版本。iPad甚至可以作为电子相册使用。iPod程序很漂亮,日程表和联系人也一样。不幸的是,苹果没有把一些老程序加进iPad,比如天气,时钟,股票行情软件。
I tested a small selection of the new third-party iPad apps Apple hopes to have available at launch, and most were also rich and feature-filled, beyond what iPhone apps offer. These included games such as Scrabble and "Touch Hockey," a database app, news services and more.
我测试了一部分第三方iPad新应用,苹果将在首发时推出它们,大部分都提供了相当丰富的功能,比iPhone应用要好得多。这些应用包括游戏(Scrbble和Touch Hockey),数据库应用,新闻服务及其他。
I was able to try a pre-release version of The Wall Street Journal’s new iPad app (which I had nothing to do with designing), and found it gorgeous and highly functional—by far the best implementation of the newspaper I have ever seen on a screen. Unlike the Journal’s Web site, or its smart-phone apps, the iPad version blends much more of the look and feel of the print paper into the electronic environment. Other newspapers and magazines have announced plans for their own, dramatically more realistic iPhone apps.
我尝试了华尔街日报应用的早期测试版(我并没有参与设计),发现它非常漂亮,而且非常实用——这是我到现在为止看到的最好的电子报纸的设计。与华尔街日报的网站或智能手机客户端不同,iPad版本的设计力图使电子版报纸看起来很像实体报纸。其他的报纸杂志也有类似的计划,不过有趣的是它们推出的是iPhone应用。
I also found iBooks, Apple’s book reader and store, easy to use, and read a couple of books on it. I consider the larger color screen superior to the Kindle’s, and encountered no eye strain. But the iPad is much heavier than the Kindle and most people will need two hands to use it. The iBooks app also lacks any way to enter notes, and Apple’s catalog at launch will only be about 60,000 books versus more than 400,000 for Kindle.
苹果的iBooks(购书和读书的应用)也非常好用,我已经在上面读完了好几本书。比起Kindle来,iPad的彩色屏幕更大,因此我没有遇到眼睛疲劳的问题。但是iPad比起Kindle太重了,大多数时候你需要两只手来抓住它。iBooks还缺少记笔记的功能,苹果的书店首发时只有6万本书,而Kinlde首发时有超过40万本书。
I did run into some other annoying limitations. For instance, the email program lacks the ability to create local folders or rules for auto-sorting messages, and it doesn’t allow group addressing. The browser lacks tabs. And the Wi-Fi-only version lacks GPS. Also, videophiles may dislike the fact that the iPad’s screen lacks wide-screen dimensions, so you either get black bars above or below wide-screen videos, or, if you choose an option to fill the screen, some of the picture may get cut off.
我也遇到了一些很恼人的限制。比如说,邮件程序没有提供创建本地目录的功能(注:即将服务器的邮件另存在本地,以供离线使用),没法设置自动排序的规则,不支持邮件地址群组。浏览器不提供页签式浏览功能。WIFI版本的iPad没有GPS功能。视频收藏家们可能还会对苹果没有提供宽屏幕而怨声载道,播放时得忍受上下两条黑边;虽然可以选择让视频填满屏幕,但这意味着左右两端部分画面会被截掉。
All in all, however, the iPad is an advance in making more-sophisticated computing possible via a simple touch interface on a slender, light device. Only time will tell if it’s a real challenger to the laptop and netbook.
总之,iPad是个不错的指控设备,制作精良,轻巧易用。只有时间才能告诉我们,它对笔记本和上网本的挑战能否成功。
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