When I first got my iPad I felt extremely guilty. I have always been a diehard PC fan and my relationship with Macs over the years has been strained at best. When I saw and used an iPad for the first time at my uncles house on a college road trip I was skeptical. Why would anyone need a tablet? Honestly, it was super cool. But I didn’t want to admit that to myself because my extended family had money and could have cool things like that. Meanwhile I knew that such technology would probably be out of my reach for a long time. I managed to continue hating iPads and iPhones and thumbing my nose at Apple fans for quite a while and like most Apple haters I felt pretty good about myself.

But then I came to law school and peer pressure got the best of me. Also: my poor netbook finally gave into eternal sleep. I needed something portable for class. Not really to take notes on – because I suck at taking notes – but to browse the internet on while pretending to pay attention. I even tried to play Grand Theft Auto III in class once but that ended horribly.

There are, however, other ways to waste your time.

The iPad is a fantastic medium for magazines. I love it. I have always liked magazines and reading through them but print-subscriptions can be expensive and they often tear and get what or whatever. But on the iPad the images are crisper and the added features are awesome. The images can move, they can embed additional images, they can provide links to additional content. It’s great.

The problem is that sometimes the iPad subscriptions for magazines are expensive. There are some that cost just as much as a print subscription. Which is kind of lame. The good news is that while most of the usual magazines you might read are available on your iPad there are also any number of free magazines out there. I’ve browsed through a lot of them and I’ve found a few that deserve mentioning. Most focus either on video games, entertainment, or computers and technology unless otherwise noted. And best of all – they are all FREE.

  • Game Q
  • Game Reactor
  • Distro
  • Lowdown
  • CineWorld
  • CPU
  • iGizmo
  • Lowes Creative Ideas Magazine (Free for the Crafty Among Us)
  • Metro iPad (UK News – Entertainment News)
  • Dash Recipes (Food)
  • Huffington Post (News – Some Entertainment News)

Now, my favorite iPad magazine is not free. I love the Entertainment Weekly iPad edition and think it’s great. When you flip through the various sections there are tons of additional links and things that you can click and play around with. In the music sections they have clips of the songs or links to where you can buy them. In the movie and television sections there are links to trailers and special interviews. It’s great. But also it does cost money.

The stuff I listed above? Totally free.

You guys should check them out. And if I left off any geektastic free magazines let me know. Or if you have some other magazines to recommend (not just nerdy/geeky ones) let us know in the comments! I am always looking for some new magazines to read through during class.

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