One Week With The iPad 2

I just wanted to offer a few thoughts on Apple’s iPad 2 after spending roughly a week with my new purchase.

One of my first articles was my impression of Apple's first generation tablet device; a machine that I felt was a brilliant piece of hardware.

Design -
There is really nothing that I can say that hasn’t been said about Apple’s commitment to design. The iPad 2 is a beautiful device. The brushed aluminum back with it’s tasteful black Apple logo is simply iconic. All of the device’s buttons are also clad in black and offer a nice accent to the metallic theme.

The device is very easy to hold and handle. It’s extreme thinness imparts a far better feel than the first generation iPad, which was no slouch in the design department.

 The white bezel is a nice change of pace from the standard black bezel equipped first-generation device. The tapered edges and the flat, shallow back are a welcome change from the elegant curves of the iPad prime and make it far more stable when lying flat.

Hardware -
Where to begin?

The iPad 2 is sporting a dual-core processor that doubles its theoretical performance. Honestly, I can’t really discern any noticeable difference between the iPad 2 and iPad prime in terms of general tasks. Both seem up to the challenge of simple computing and both handle applications with a gracious ease.

The screen is unchanged from the first generation iPad and to be honest, there is nothing of significance to report here.. The screen is still a responsive, bright (although not quite as bright as the original iPad’s screen) and beautiful IPS panel. Apple’s engineers (and I thank them for this) wisely decided to mount the microphone just above the front facing camera, a welcome change over the previous generation’s side-mounted microphone.

The iPad 2's GPU has been vastly improved, which makes me wonder if it was originally destined to bear the retina display. As with the dual core A5 processor, the real-world effect of the iPad 2's next-generation GPU is minimal when it comes to basic tasks, however, gaming sees a noticeable performance bump. Jenga is just one example of an awesome game that utilizes the iPad 2’s improved graphics processing power.

Two front-facing cameras were included in this iteration of the iPad, but they are of the fairly low quality sort that are found on the fourth generation iPod Touch. All I have to say is that you shouldn't purchase the iPad 2 solely for it’s cameras, they just aren’t that good...

The iPad 2 also includes a 3G radio (as an option, which I opted for), GPS (on the 3G version only) and accelerometer. These options are nice and I appreciate their inclusion, but you definitely pay a premium for the 3G radio and GPS functionality.

Summation -
The iPad 2 is a great device, but the price, performance and battery life may not justify the leap from the iPad prime to the second generation. If you absolutely need or want front-facing cameras, 3G functionality, or passage into the iTunes ecosystem, then I would highly recommend the iPad 2. However, if you currently own the iPad prime, I would have a hard time recommending this device.

 In addition, Samsung is making ready to release a new crop of Android powered tablets which are thinner and lighter than the iPad 2, but, as always, it remains to be seen if they can match Apple in terms of pure performance, battery life and "app" variety.

Apple's calling card remains price, performance, variety of "apps", battery life and the maturity of the iOS platform and I am happy to report that that has not changed with the introduction of the iPad 2.