Apple iPad: Buyers report

16 March 2012

Queuing Apple fans surveyed on thoughts about the new iPad

The new iPad goes on sale today, which means some of the UK has been waiting impatiently – but stoically – outside their nearest Apple Store to get at their newly purchased Apple slates.

Dynamo PR was on hand to survey the Regent Street store's 397 queuers, a number it says is way down from last year's iPad 2 queue (632) when, presumably, you actually thought Apple might blow your mind the way it did with the iPhone 4.

Still, almost 400 is a mighty number to be snaking around Oxford Circus. 45% of them have never owned an iPad before, or indeed, a tablet, and 57% will be plumping for the top-end 64GB 3G/Wi-Fi model.

In comparison, the most popular model of the iPad 2 was the 16GB Wi-Fi entry-level version.

Unsurprisingly, 73% of people who would bother queuing on a Friday morning own an iPhone, though 10% were packing Android, with a not-inconsiderable 3% on Windows Phone, and 14% on 'other' (including BlackBerry).

So why, you might ask, are these queuers queuing at all, when the iPad is also available at Currys, Dixons, PC World plus a handful of operators and websites? Well, 13% wrongly assumed it was only available from Apple's Regent Street home, but 54% are there just 'to be there', 5% didn't pre-order one before they sold out and 28% couldn't actually say why they'd queued.

The Retina display was cited by 242 people as the killer feature – we'll have a full review of that very thing, very soon, but in the meantime, check out some pictures in our hands-on preview here.