Apple announced its latest iPad on 7 March, and the world went into predictable meltdown, with demand already causing delays to orders. Two Londoners had a far simpler way of coping with such exciting news — march down Regent Street on Saturday – that’s 10 March, almost a week before launch – plonk down a couple of chairs, and wait.

First in the queue is 21-year-old Zohaib Ali, and he’s sat alongside 18-year-old friend Ali Tarighi. They’re slumped next to the Apple Store’s main entrance, with bags of fizzy drinks strewn around, and there’s no doubt the two attract plenty of glances in the middle of a busy day.

Zohaib explained that he’s a veteran when it comes to extreme Apple queuing. “I did this for the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2″, he says, and there’s a clear reason why he’s willing to put himself through such a ordeal: “because we want to be first.”

So, what’s it like spending a week outside the Apple store? “The staff come out and say hello, and they’re really nice,” says Ali, “and some people come up to us and say good luck, and say they’re coming back to queue later. At night people come up and laugh, and tell us we’re crazy and mad.”

“If we didn’t have the store’s Wi-Fi we’d be screwed,” Ali says. Zohaib has his laptop and iPad 2 out as we speak, and seems pretty chipper about the prospect of waiting for a few more days. “Right now it seems that time’s actually going pretty fast.”

Zohaib is excited about the improvements the new iPad brings to the table. “It’s going to be the best one yet,” he says, with the “1080p video recording and retina display” ensuring that it’ll be “a real improvement over last year.”

Despite Ali queuing for almost a week, he’s less impressed with Apple’s updated iPad. “The A5X chip is nice, but a quad-core GPU on a tablet is kind of overkill. I’m a little annoyed they’re not adding Adobe Flash support, too.”

He’s hardly enamoured with Jony Ive’s famously minimalist design, either. “I think [Apple] could have done more,” he says, adding that Apple has “been a bit lazy with the 4S and the new iPad”.

It’s easy enough to throw words like “fanboy” at Zohaib and Ali — queuing almost a week for a chunk of aluminium and a snazzy screen is certainly extreme, and Zohaib told us it was “Apple or nothing” when it comes to his mobile devices. Ali, though? He’s not so certain: while he owns an iPhone and an iPad, he confessed to us that he’s actually a big fan of Windows and building his own PCs.

So, what do you reckon? Dedicated and entirely sensible, or a crazy waste of time? Let us know if you’ll be queuing or laughing in the comments.