Glare

The biggest problem with reading on the beach on the iPad is the glare. I joked before I left that I might have to charge Loyola for my umbrella rental. There is no way to read directly in the sun on the iPad; the screen is barely visible. I believe that this is one of the advantages of the other electronic book readers (Nook and Kindle). However, I did manage to read quite a bit while parked under an umbrella (my father-in-law brings his 40-year-old-umbrella with fringes so we don't need to rent one). It was not ideal, but it worked. I also read on the porch (which was covered). This worked best in the morning because the sun was more direct in the afternoon. I also read well in the condominium, which worked very well as long as the window wasn't behind me.

iBooks does have an adjustment for brightness, which is independent from the brightness adjustment for the rest of the iPad. That is, it starts out at whatever your iPad is set to, but you can then change it in iBooks temporarily without changing the overall iPad setting. As soon as the iPad turns off, it resets back to the general setting. When reading indoors, I just left it on the default setting. When reading outdoors, I kicked it up to the highest setting. I wish it could have gotten brighter.

Overall, because of this, if your primary purpose is to read outside, I wouldn't recommend the iPad. I could struggle through for the occasional outdoor read, but it wasn't nearly as comfortable as a regular book (or, from what I've heard, some of the other electronic readers).