iPad 2 review

iPad 2 review

iPad 2 is simply the original iPad with a thinner design, a couple ofcameras, and a faster chipset. Only it isn’t. Not any more than the originaliPad was just a big iPhone. Device by device, year after year, Apple has slowlyand now successfully changed the conversation from individual specs to unifiedexperience, from reviewer and competitor driven checklists to mainstreamconsumer-centric usability. They’ve forced us to touch and feel our computingand not just click and think our way through it.

In that regard iPad 2 is the sequel to a smash hit that very fewoutside Apple ever saw coming. The only question is whether it’s Empire StrikesBack or Matrix Reloaded — whether it takes the same elements that made theoriginal a success and builds on them and creates something even better, or ifit adds unnecessary complexity, loses its focus, and kills the franchise. Applehas a great track record, arguably the best in the business these days, butthey also have a habit of mixing a healthy dose of frustration into even theirmost fantastic products.

When Steve Jobs first introduced the first iPad in January 2010 (seeour original iPad review) he showed it fitting somewhere between the laptop andthe smartphone. He said it had to do better than both at browsing, email,photos, video, music, games, and eBooks. 15 million units and 9 months later itachieved those goals, though with varying degrees of success. Now it’s iPad2′sturn. Does it make even more sense as a mid-position, mainstream computingappliance? Do the new atoms and bits make it better realize those 7 keyfeatures and do they add anything beyond them? Does iPad 2 build on iPad 1 andcreate something better or is it less than the sum of its new parts?

iPad 2 hardware

Apple claims iPad 2 is a complete redesign. Not really. It’s more of apartial redesign but only because of where Apple has placed so much of theexternal emphasis.

April 2010 vs. March 2011 iOS device lineup

Same screen, different year

The part that arguably matters most — the window into apps and the webthat Jonathan Ive was so careful not to distract us from — is essentially thesame this generation as it was last. It’s still a 9.7-inches of LED IPS panel.It’s still 1024×768. It’s still 4:3. It’s still glossy. And none of that is asurprise. 9.7-inch is the size Apple brought to the dance, the size all theirapps and all App Store apps are designed for (in terms of UI interactivity —how big a button has to be, for example) and the size they’re sticking with. At9.7-inches 1024×768 is nowhere near Retina Display like iPhone 4 or iPod touch4 gained last year, but until Apple can source panels that are cheap enough andplentiful enough at precisely double the density — 2048×1536 there’s really noother alternative. In terms of ratio, 4:3 is still the most logical choice fora multi-media device. 16:9 or 16:10 is great for precisely one thing, HDTV. Forthe same reason — compromise — it works for fixed landscape displays like onlaptops or desktop screens. For a device that rotates like an iPad, however,it’s far too narrow in portrait for web or reading and still not narrow enoughin landscape for most motion pictures.

There’s no such rational for keeping the same level of gloss. Sure itmakes for really black blacks and looks great in stores but it also makesreading difficult in many common lighting situations. They don’t have to gomatte — and I wouldn’t want them too because I like those black blacks forphotos and video — but my eyes would appreciate their turning the reflectivitydown just a notch.

The aluminum edge and the bezel surrounding the screen areever-so-slightly smaller. (Two of our staff, Georgia and Leanna measured,likely with molecular telescopes). And this year the bezel comes in the sameblack as last year, but also comes in white. Yes, Apple managed to ship a whiteiOS device (insert your iPhone 4 jokes here). No LED flash and no proximitysensor might simply have made it an easier manufacturing process but whateverthe reason it was announced as shipping from day one and ship from day one itdid. Does a white bezel cause annoying reflections or create the illusion oflower contrast while watching videos or playing games? Not that Georgia,Leanna, or I noticed. Black is probably the color of choice for cinephiles andhard core gamers but I doubt any mainstream user will get too terribly offendedby white.

Buttoned down, ported out

It turns out the one thing that does make a noticeable differencebetween the original iPad and iPad 2 is what surrounds the screen — thebuttons. Aside from the home button, all the other controls — the sleep/wakebutton, mute/orientation lock switch, and volume rocker are all tucked awaybehind the newly (and highly) angled sides. That means you don’t see them whenyou’re looking at the screen and that window into apps and the web I mentionedearlier is more distraction-free than ever. It’s subtle but it’s appreciated.

The 30-pin dock connector is more of a mixed bag. It didn’t give me anyproblems because I’ve been trained by the just-as-steeply set iPod touch 4 dockbut the curve can cause confusion when trying to figure out just what angleexactly to use when attaching the cable. (The answer is none, the cable goes inthe same plane as the iPad, as if there were no curve.)

The 3.5mm headphone jack is the same story. The port is angled but thecable goes in and out the same as always. What has changed, vexingly, is theSIM-card tray. It’s angled to follow the curve but the SIM removal tool needsto be inserted perpendicular to that curve, not along the same plane likeeverything else.

The speaker is… the speaker. It’s got a new, larger surface coveredwith tiny perforations rather than the triple ovals of the previous iPad. Butthe sound is still mono. For a company that’s done so much to revolutionizemusic Apple might want to look into revolutionizing up some decent stereospeakers for iPad 3. (HP/Palm will be using Beats by Dr. Dre in their upcomingTouchPad tablet and while the brand is gimmicky the focus on audio quality iscertainly not.)

And that’s it. Despite rumors, Apple didn’t provide a USB port or SDcard slot. There’s a camera adapter dongle for that and like Jonathan Ive hassaid from the beginning, Apple is loathe to build in any feature most userswon’t use most of the time. There’s also an HDMI dongle in-lieu of a port forthe same reason (more on that later). And while Apple debuted the new 10GBThunderBolt port on this year’s MacBook Pro family, it’s a PCI Express-basedinterconnect and that’s great for PCI Express-based architectures like Mac andother PCs, but meaningless to the non-PCI Express-based family of iOS devices,including iPad 2.

Cameras — in air quotes

Our editor-in-chief, Dieter, insists we render the iPad 2′s newlenses and sensors as “cameras” — with quotes — and Ican’tsay I blame him. To say they’re better than nothing is to damnthem with exactly the level of faint praise they deserve. They’re thesame lowest-end possible affair as the iPod touch 4. There’s a VGA FaceTimecamera on the front and 720p HD video camera on the back (which equates tounder 1 megapixel for stills).

 

Leanna, our resident photo enthusiast, took the iPad 2 cameras out fora test. She found that in well-lit situations, the HD camera produces excellentresults and the VGA camera gives acceptable quality. Both cameras do an ok jobin bad lighting situations, but do better than she was expecting and lookbetter on the PC and YouTube than they did on-device.

Taking still photographs with the iPad 2 was not nearly as rewarding asvideo. Photo quality was mediocre even in excellent light conditions, thoughshe was impressed with the close-ups. Digital zoom with the rear-facing camera,however, was awful.

    iPad 2 photo test gallery

iPad 2 also borrowed iPod touch 4′splacement for the cameras. The front camera is dead center, in line with andopposed to the home button. The rear camera is tucked in the corner directlybeneath the sleep/wake button. That means you can easily cover it with yourhand and waste a moment wondering why all your live-view is giving you is ablur of black and red. (Rotate the iPad 180 degrees to fix this.)

iPad 2 is too big to use as a regular camera anyway. There’s a reasonno major manufacturer makes a consumer grade camera with a 9.7-inch screen.It’s just too loud and obnoxious to use as your daily shooter or tourist cam.Trust me, I tried.

Rene hawaiian shirt

However, many would argue that the iPad 2′scameras aren’tfor stills and are only nominally for video. They’re forAugmented Reality apps as exemplified by Apple’s ownPhoto Booth (see below). To those people I’d say —nonsense. iPhone 4 proved you can have a great rear facing camera in a thindevice. Augmented Reality apps would likely look even better with a beefiersensor behind them. As we’ve repeatedly pointed out at TiPb, there’s thin andthen there’s thin at the expense of functionality. I’d rather have a bettercamera than have an extra millimeter shaved off the iPad’sthickness. Here’s hoping Apple takes the iPad 2 andiPod touch 4′srear facing 720p camera and puts that in the front of iPhone 5, iPod touch 5,and iPad 3 and gives the entire range of iOS mobile devices a better rearfacing imagine sensor next time around.

Body by Venus

Georgia maintains the thinner, sleeker, dare-she-say-sexier casingmeans iPad 2 is from Venus while the original iPad 1 was from Mars. Her pointis Apple didn’t only bring the cameras over from iPod touch 4 — it brought thecurves. A slight bit shorter and skinnier than the original iPad, it’s also anunbelievable 33% thinner at only 0.34-inches. That’s thinner than iPhone 4thin.

    Height: 9.50 inches (241.2mm)

    Width: 7.31 inches (185.7 mm)

    Thinness: 0.34 inch (8.8 mm)

Apple accomplished this nearly fetishistic of thinness by flatteningout the battery and reducing the depth of the glass used on front. That’s finefor the battery but unless the new glass is even more gorilla than the originalI’m going to be even more paranoid about protecting it than I was aboutprotecting the original. (Conveniently Apple provides a Smart Cover for that.)

Because of the reduced depth, instead of a flat side frame like theoriginal iPad or like the antenna provides on iPhone 4, we have a curvaceous,completely unframed aluminum back like iPod touch 4. The result is that it sitsflatter and feels even smaller when you hold it.

Thankfully it’s not chromed like iPod touch 4, it’s the same mattefinish as the original iPad and even the original iPhone 2G. Not so thankfullyit’s every bit as slick as those devices so if you’re at all clumsy (hi!) orworried about it sliding off armrests or car seats, you’ll have to look atsoft-touch or silicon cases when they become available.

All this thinness contributes to a reduction in weight as well. It’sonly 0.2-lbs lighter than the original iPad but on a 1.3-lbs device that’sappreciated. It by no means makes it a one-handed device but it makes it a tadless tiring to hold and whether it’s reading, surfing, or gaming, every littlebit helps.

    Wi-Fi: 1.33 pounds (601 g)

    GSM/AT&T 3G: Weight: 1.35pounds (613 g)

    Verizon 3G: Weight: 1.34pounds (607 g)

New guts, new glory

In our review last year we said the original iPad’s specs weren’tinteresting or even important — it was the experience. This year Apple clearlyfeels the same about iPad 2 only more so. However, while you can clearly throwspecs at a device and fail to deliver an experience, a great experiencerequires good enough specs to deliver it. Enter the Apple A5 System-on-a-Chip(SoC) and 512MB of RAM.

According to benchmarks, Apple’s A5 is likely a dual-core ARM Cortex A9CPU at 1GHz but dynamically clocked to 900MHz, alongside an Imagination PowerVRSGX 543MP2, souped up with 512MB of RAM. In CPU and JavaScript render testsiPad 2 was a little faster than iOS 4.3 on iPad 1 and Android 3.0 Honeycomb onthe Xoom. In GPU tests it was devastatingly faster. Faster as in it digs ahole, stomps them into the mud, refills the whole, stomps it again, and repeatsten more times before the others even try to fight back. It’s fast.

What all these geekily benchmarked numbers mean in the real world isfaster access to your web pages, especially JavaScript-heavy pages likeFacebook, and far smoother, more detailed, and more high-performance graphicsin everything from OS transitions to full 3D games. The extra RAM means you cankeep more web pages in memory and apps and games in saved state longer.Maddeningly, the original iPad was so RAM-starved it would practically reload aweb page every time you changed tabs. I’ve kept 5 or more — the entireSmartphone Experts Network in fact — live and instantly reachable in Safaritabs with nary a reload in sight. Same goes for apps and games. When beforesaved states would drop semi regularly I’ve barely ever seen that on iPad 2even with several big games in the Fast App Switcher at once.

About the only internal spec that didn’t get a bump is storage. Theoptions remain the same at 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB which is fine for almost allmainstream users but not the 128GB media aficionados have been clamoring for.

No other change from iPad to iPad 2 is more physically invisible butexperientially meaningful than the new internals.

Smart magnets

iPad 2 has 10 magnets built into the frame. Currently they’re used toboth attach Apple’s Smart Covers, and to sleep/wake-and-unlock the iPad 2itself. Flick the Smart Cover and its 21 magnets anywhere near the left edge ofiPad 2 and the magnets will grab it and align it near-perfectly. Lift them orclose them over the right edge and the screen will go dark or light upinstantaneously.

But the Smart Covers — despite the press they’re getting — aren’t thestory. They’re just the introduction. Apple had first-party and hence first-mover advantage and will likely sell a ton of Smart Covers at launch. However,I’m more excited about what will come next, when every creative case maker andgenius accessory company in the business starts to release succeedinggenerations of “smart” products.

Gryos and radios and batteries, oh my

Like iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4 before it, iPad 2 adds a gyroscope toits existing accelerometer which provides precise 3-axis rotation and controlto games, Augmented Reality, and other motion-sensitive apps. (Real Racingfans, commence your celebrations.)

While Apple didn’t go LTE with their cellular radio, and didn’t evengive us HSPA+, they did add a CDMA option for Verizon.

    GSM/AT&T:UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900MHz)

    Verizon: CDMA EV-DO Rev. A(800, 1900 MHz)

The lack of LTE makes sense given its small footprint and Apple’sreluctance to even go 3G in the original iPhone. HSPA+ is a disappointment,however, considering it’s international deployment (though admittedlyAT&T’s HSPA+ isn’t at the faster end of the spectrum…). With the VerizoniPhone launch earlier in the year, a CDMA iPad was almost a no-brainer.Coverage and competition will no doubt be welcome, though EVDO is slower thanHSPA and there’s no voice network so no dropped calls to worry about.

iPad 2 has the same 802.11/a/b/g/n as last year, which is to say thelatest and greatest still available. Bluetooth is also the same as last year,2.1 + EDR. There is a Bluetooth 3.0 + HS spec, adopted in 2009, that boostsspeeds by handing the connection over to Wi-Fi but Apple has shown no interestin that to date. Maybe they’re waiting on Wi-Fi direct…

Most impressively, even with all the new internals Apple to crammedinto iPad 2, they managed to retain the same 10 hours of battery life(25-watt-hour). Whether that’s some black magic mix of highly efficienthardware and aggressive software I don’t know, but getting so much performancewithout giving up any battery life is a huge achievement.

Accessories and compatibility

Due to the very different form factor, original iPad cases (with theexception of pouches, which might be a bit roomy) aren’t compatible with iPad2. Other accessories, especially those that connect via cable to the dock portor use Bluetooth should be just fine. Those that connect directly to the dockport, such as cradles and car kits may or may not work so keep that in mind ifyou’re upgrading.

Apple’s own Smart Covers come in pastel gray, blue, green, orange, andpink polyurethane for $39 or cream, tan, black, navy, or (PRODUCT) red for $69.

The Digital AV adapter (HDMI cable) is $39 and if you want to gowireless with AirPlay but no mirroring, an Apple TV is $100

Both the camera kit and VGA adapter from the original iPad continue towork with iPad 2, as do the component and composite cables and the 10w poweradapter. There’s a new iPad 2-specific dock for $29 and while the original iPaddock and keyboard dock seem to still be available from Apple, I wouldn’t riskthem. You can get a Bluetooth Keyboard for greater flexibility and compatibility.

The total package

Some say iPad 2 is an iPhone 3GS-style upgrade. They’re wrong. It’s notiPhone 3G (no next-generation radio) or iPhone 3GS (which didn’t get any extracameras). As should be apparent by now, it’s an iPod touch 3 (2009) to iPodtouch 4 (2010)-style upgrade. Thinner and sleeker, the glass and aluminum ofiPad 2 still feels every bit as solid as the first iPad. It remains heavy butuntil Apple creates some liquid metal-unubtainium hybrid that’s just thereality of a 9.7-inch device. So it still needs a lap or a table or an armrestor something to lean on for extended use. It’s better than the original iPadbut only slightly in that regard.

Likewise it’s even less cluttered and more completely that window intoapps and the web, but only slightly so. It equals the screen and betters theoriginal iPad hardware in almost every way, especially the A5 processor. Itunbelievably fast and even more unbelievably — the iPad 2 stays cool to thetouch even when pushing ridiculous amounts of video and hardcore gaming.(Enough to make me wonder what an ARM-powered MacBook Air could one day be like— the Intel chipset running Adobe Flash can serve double duty as a griddle.)

iPad Software

The original iPad shipped with iOS 3.2, which was new and exciting atthe time. It got its first taste of iOS 4 — including fast app switching,multitasking API, folders, and more — with iOS 4.2 last November and again itfelt like a huge update. iPad 2 ships with iOS 4.3 and it’s relativelyconservative by comparison. We’ve done a complete iOS 4.3 walkthrough alreadybut here I’d like to focus on those features designed to complement iPad2-specific hardware, and those features that benefit the most from iPad2-specific hardware improvements.

We’ll start with Steve Jobs’ 7 better features.

Safari and web browsing

As Andrew shows in the video above, the combination of iOS 4.3′s newNitro JavaScript engine (ported over from the Mac), the new Apple A5 SoC, andmost especially the boost to 512MB of RAM turns Safari from an excellent iffrustrating experience on the original iPad to an excellent and now mostlyfantastic experience on iPad 2.

Where the original iPad tended to “kill” background tabs whenever itran out of available memory — which was pretty much every time you switchedpages and an incredibly annoying quality in a web browser — iPad 2 can keep aton of tabs “alive” That means it doesn’t have to re-load them after eachswitch and you can stop waiting and start reading immediately. Also, thedreaded “checkerboard effect” — where significant lag would occur before Safaricould render the web page content — is minimal. If waiting for a complex pagelike Facebook to render used to make you tear your hair out, iPad 2 will makecertain you get to keep what you have left.

If your primary iPad use is web browsing, this by itself might makeiPad 2 a worthy upgrade. As we’ll see in a moment with apps and gaming, it’slike going from dial-up to broadband. Combined with their industry leading HTML5 and CSS 3 support, iPad 2 Safari is an incredible browser and an unparalleledplatform for mobile web development (web apps).

And yes, due to complacency on the part of Adobe and intransigence onthe part of Apple, iPad 2 Safari still doesn’t support Flash. If Flash iscritical to you and App Store apps like SkyFire or iSwifter (which transcodeFlash to H.264 video on the fly) aren’t solution enough, iPad 2 may be anon-starter.

Email, Photos, Video, Music, and eBooks

Thanks to iPad 2′s Apple A5 processor the apps launchfaster. Thanks to the “cameras”,Photos now has a real Camera Roll. Thanks to iOS 4.3 Home Sharing and AirPlaythe media is more transportable than ever (streaming from your Mac or WindowsPC to your iPad and from your iPad to your Apple TV). Thanks to a steady streamof iBooks updates and publisher additions, eBooks are better looking and lessembarrassing when compared to Amazon’s Kindle catalog.

Most of these are incidental improvements, however. The Mail app hasn’tbeen redesigned to provide flags/stars, mark as spam, or mark all as readfunctionality. Photos hasn’t gotten any form of cloud-based sync. Videos andMusic still haven’t gotten iTunes Extras or iTunes LP support (anyone rememberthose?!). And Apple’s new subscription service is controversial to say theleast and hasn’t done anything to provide for a unified marketplace forperiodicals — iMags, iNews, iComics are still in iLimbo.

Perhaps iOS 5 will address these issues and more .

Gaming

Apple touted 9x graphics performance on iPad 2 and also introduced agyroscope for 3-axis positioning. It’s safe to say they’re taking gaming veryseriously. How does it all come together? According to Chad — awesomely well.They launch faster and play more fluidly with little or no slow down orskipping. The level of texture and detail is also much higher and because iPad2 is thinner and a little lighter, it is much more comfortable to hold.

Of course developers need to update their games to take advantage ofthe better processing and graphics. Some have already and with spectacularresults. Real Racing HD 2, Infinity Blade, and Dead Space HD are all incredibleexamples of what’s possible on iPad 2 — before the device even shipped. It willbe interesting to see what developers can get out of it now that they have itin their hands, and in the months to follow.

    Top 5 apps and games to showoff your new iPad 2

Apps

While not part of Steve Jobs’ original 7 key features, Apple spent aconsiderable amount of time during the iPad 2 introduction on iMovie andGarageBand. Both were no doubt created with three different but complementarygoals in mind — to delight and astonish users with an incredibly immersivecontent creation experience, to raise the bar for developers and challenge themto make mobile software of the same caliber, and to programmatically walk up tothe competition, pull out a Bugs Bunny glove, fill it with a brick, and smackthem back to the drawing board.

They represent the next generation of tablet software, once againredefining perceptions and expectations on what can and can’t be done withmultitouch and 9.7-inches of glass and aluminum. And interestingly, unlike lastyear’s suite of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, this year Apple switched fromiWork to iLife and with much better results. While it was fun to finger paintwith productivity, I still found myself going back to my Mac when I needed toget work done. iMovie and GarageBand better fit the iPad vision, or at leastApple is getting better at articulating their vision with these apps.

But that’s big picture stuff. Mainstream users, when they’re layingdown up to 8-tracks, tapping away on virtual drums, strumming virtual strings,tickling virtual ivory, and laying down some smoking hot vocals to top it off,you won’t care about any of that. They’ll be rocking out to GarageBand.

Both are $4.99 on the App Store and will hopefully be joined by a realiPhoto or Aperture app at some point soon.

    iMovie hands-on

FaceTime

FaceTime on iPad 2 is built-in and functions in the same manner as iPodtouch 4. Enter and Apple ID, associate it with an email address you want toserve as the FaceTime “call number”, and you’re good to go. Because iPad 2 hasthe same cameras as iPod touch 4 the quality is similar but due to the largesize of iPad 2′s screen, it feels better. It’s likedoing FaceTime on Mac or Skype on Pac but without the annoying keyboard gettingin your way. Dieter described it as the optimal shared experience. iPhones andiPods touch are great for a single user but if you want to have family moments— grandparents sitting on the sofa, parents with their children on their lapsthe iPad is better. Even classes and coworkers huddled together will benefitfrom iPad’s implementation of FaceTime.

It’s a question of scale really. iPad doesn’t show FaceTime in realsize but it shows FaceTime closer to real size and it makes a difference, evenif you’re just one person reclining on the sofa…

Georgia Chad iPad FaceTime

Unfortunately, Apple didn’t (yet?) choose to take advantage of the bigiPad screen by giving us FaceTime conference calls so three long-distancefamily members or friends can share a video call. Maybe iOS 5 will also addressthat.

Also, while Apple uses open standards for FaceTime they don’t seem tohave pushed out FaceTime itself as an easy to implement open standard so iOSusers can easily video chat with Android, webOS, and Windows users. Until thathappens, cross-platform solutions like Skype remain more appealing. (Especiallybecause they work over 3G, unlike FaceTime — unless you tether to amobile/personal hotspot, which makes the kind of sense that doesn’t.)

Photo Booth

Leanna took a look at Photo Booth, also built-in on iPad 2, and foundit to be fun if silly, similar to Photo Booth on the Mac, and entertaining forkids and adults alike. Photo Booth is equipped with 8 different effects:Thermal Camera, Mirror, X-Ray, Kaleidoscope, Light Tunnel, Squeeze, Twirl, andStretch. You can edit the effect before snapping the picture by pinching anddragging on the screen. As you take photos (from either front or rear camera)with Photo Booth, they are saved to your Camera Roll and you can see thumbnailsof the images at the bottom of the screen. From here, you can easily email,copy, and delete multiple photos. Be careful though, deleting a photo fromPhoto Booth also deletes it from your Camera Roll.

Again, the quality of the photos taken with the VGA front-facing cameraare not by any means outstanding, but given the nature of these shots – fun,quirky, and silly – it isn’t too big of a deal.

While kids might go back to Photo Booth again and again, and it mightbe fun to demo for friends and family, my guess is Apple included it on iPad 2as more of a tech demo — to show how the Apple A5 SoC can handle 9 simultaneouscamera live views, all with different, real-time reflections — and as a greatin-store demo. Kids playing on Photo Booth for Mac has been a staple of AppleStore activity for ages. Now those kids will be playing on Photo Booth foriPad.

Video mirroring

With iPad 2 you can finally duplicate the iOS display onto an externalmonitor or HDTV via Apple’s Digital AV Adapter (which I’ll more sanely call theHDMI adapter from now on). That means anything on your iPad 2 from the homescreen to videos to games to presentations can be shared with larger groups ona bigger screen. For video, AirPlay is probably better because it’s wirelessbut it requires an Apple TV on the receiving end. Because the adapter goes straightinto the HDMI port it can handle up to 1080p and unlike AirPlay, it can showapps. (Hopefully AirPlay will gain that ability in the future.)

Since iPad is 1024×768 it shows up as letter- and pillar-boxed on a1080p (1920×1080) display. That means it’s not as big as it could possibly bebut it also means the pixels are mapped 1-to-1 and aren’t stretched and blurredto fill the screen. (You can use your HDTV’s zoom feature to fill the screen ifyou don’t care about pixel perfection and just want it BIG.)

Georgia and I tried it out on her wall mounted HDTV and while she hadto maintain focus on the iPad to play Infinity Blade and Angry Birds, herfamily and I got to enjoy watching along. For group games it could be a lot offun. For use in a classroom or conference room it could be game changing.

That Post-PC thing

Apple has taken to calling the iPad a post-PC device, and retconnediPod and iPhone into the same category. I don’t recall a PC being called apost-mainframe, but that’s neither here nor there. Dieter recently ranted onthe iPad Live! podcast that iPad still needs to be plugged into iTunes toactivate and that makes the post-PC rather PC-dependent. Apple Stores will dothis for you but Apple won’t ship the device already activated, and any timeyou update iOS you need to re-tether to iTunes to re-activate. Apple may thinkthat transfers over iTunes DRM authentication and promotes regular backups butin 2011 it’s also a bit of a pain.

Most Android devices and all webOS devices require a Gmail or Palm IDto activate them, which I’d argue means they’re still dependent on a PC, justone in the cloud. It would be nice if iPad 2 — if all mobile devices — toredown that dependance, local and cloud both, and made it optional. Then theycould stop being post-PC, stop being transitional, and become a thing untothemselves.

Waiting on June

Beyond activation, iPad software in general is hamstrung by the factthat major new iOS releases are historically timed to coincide with majoriPhone releases. That means any new iPad, the first one notwithstanding, iscurrently destined to wait 3 months for a really meaningful update. At leastthat’s the case this year. A couple of new built-in apps aside, iPad 2 isrunning a 9-month old, thrice point-bumped OS at the moment. While iOS 4, andin this specific case iOS 4.3 is impressive on iPad 2, I can’t help but imaginewhat iOS 5 will bring.

Settings restored from the cloud, Syngergy-style contact and status aggregation,App and game sync across iOS devices, a unified file repository, system-widevoice control, elegant notifications, a Theme Store, and any number of otherimprovements will no doubt be as big a deal for iPad 2 as iOS 4.2 was for theoriginal iPad. That’s an exciting prospect.

Pricing and availability

iPad 2 launched on March 11 in the US and is currently scheduled tolaunch on March 25 in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic,Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy,Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal,Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. Additional countries, including the restof Asia will follow but no dates have yet been announced.

In the US iPad 2 is available online and in stores at AT&T, BestBuy, Target, Verizon Wireless, Walmart and select Apple Authorized Resellers.

Pricing remains the same: $499 for 16GB Wi-Fi, $599 for 32GB Wi-Fi, and$699 for 64GB Wi-Fi. AT&T GSM/HSPA and separate Verizon CDMA/EVDO rev Amodels are available for $130 more or $629 for 16GB 3G, $729 for 32GB 3G, and$829 for 64GB 3G.

All those models come in both white and black for a grand total of 18SKUs for US shoppers to choose from, a dizzying 10 more than last year. (Internationalshoppers will only have 12 SKUs to choose from — no Verizon models.)

Conclusion

iPad 2 is an evolutionary improvement to the original iPad, but that’strue of almost every iOS device update. Taken year by year each generationseems only slightly better than the last. It’s like children you see every dayas opposed to just on holidays. The incremental growth escapes you. Whenlooking back from the original iPhone 2G to the latest iPhone 4, however, theimprovements are staggering. And that creates a bit of a challenge forconsumers.

If you’re still not sure whether you’d even use a tablet device,whether you need something between your smartphone and laptop, head on over toyour local Apple Store, big box retailer, or carrier store and try out an iPad2. Read and watch a lot of TiPb to be sure but iPad is really something thatyou need to feel and experience before you can make an informed choice. Forsome it will be the easy-to-use PC alternative they’ve always dreamed of. Forothers it will be tertiary at best and something they just have no place for intheir lives.

If you’re trying to decide between iPad 2 and a competing tabletrunning Android, BlackBerry Tablet OS (QNX), the webOS TouchPad, or anythingelse, frankly iPad 2 should be your default choice. Most competing tabletshaven’t even shipped yet (almost all lack even a solid release date) and noneof them have the apps, accessories, fit, finish or ecosystem of iPad 2. Whilethings can and probably will change over the course of the next year, at thetime of this review the tablet space is for all intents and purposes a onehorse race. Unless there’s a feature a competing tablet has at the time youwant to buy it, a feature compelling enough to make everything else take a backseat — like a 7-inch form factor, Flash support, not being made by Apple, etc.— it’s hard to recommend anything other than iPad 2 right now.

iPad 2 vs. Xoom vs. Optimus Pad vs. Galaxy Tab 10 vs TouchPad vsBlackBerry Playbook -- Spec wars!

If you’re wondering whether or not you should upgrade, there are alwaysonly a few reasons to consider the next current year’s model over the last.Either you’re a gadget lover who simply has to have the latest and greatest, orthere’s one or more features important enough to make the upgrade worth while.For those considering the short step from iPad to iPad 2 this year, thosefeatures include video mirroring (especially if you’re in education orbusiness), the speed improvements (if Safari and apps performance was slow and RAM-starvedenough to bother you previously), the gyroscope and 9x graphics improvementsfor hardcore gamers, the magnets for those who want in on Smart Covers and theother accessories that will no doubt follow them, the cameras if FaceTime ismeaningful to you and your loved ones, and the Verizon 3G models if you needmobile connectivity and that’s the best network in your area.

(For more on whether you should get an iPad 2 and which model mightbest suit you, see our iPad buyers guide.)

I used my original iPad a lot… until iPhone 4 was released. I stillkept most of my apps and games on iPad but because iPhone 4 was so much fasterI just picked it up far more often. iPad 2 has changed that paradigm again. Thecombination of the big screen and Apple A5 processor has made it my go-todevice once more (when I’m not in feet-down mobile, of course.) It’s by nomeans perfect, and we’ve listed many of the most glaring and frustratingimperfections above, but iPad 2 looks better, it feels better, and it justworks better.

Neither Empire nor Reloaded, iPad 2 is closer akin to The Two Towers —a solid second part in the iPad’s ongoing story.