iPad 2!!

When the original iPad hit the market many people thought it would be a flop because it was just a giant iPod touch that was overpriced. Of course everybody forgot that this was a product of Apple and before long every person in the country wanted one. The iPad had a big beautiful screen that was sleek and elegant and its iOS operating system was so simple to use. And now, Apple has released the iPad 2 that is thinner and faster than ever before. Read on to find out more!

The first thing you will notice about the new iPad 2 is that it is much lighter and thinner than its predecessor. At its thickest, the iPad 2 is .34 inches whereas the original iPad was half an inch thick. The amazing thing is that the iPad 2 is actually thinner than the iPhone 4 albeit only by half a millimeter, it is amazing nonetheless. The iPad 2 is also .2 pounds lighter than the iPad at 1.3 pounds. All of these numbers don’t sound like very much but when you actually pick an iPad 2 up it makes a world of difference.

The next thing you will notice about the iPad is that it is unbelievably fast. This is thanks to its new 1 GHz dual-core A5 chip that according to Jobs, is up to 2 times faster than the original iPad. So no matter how graphics demanding a game is, you'll still have amazing performance. With this much power many of you may worry about the battery life but there is no need to fear because the iPad 2 squeezes out an impressive 10.5 hours of battery life! The iPad 2’s biggest rival the Motorola Xoom tops out at about 8.5 hours, which is 2 hours less than the iPad 2!

On the original iPad, one of the biggest complaints was the lack of camera(s).  Apple decided to address this complaint in this version of the iPad and stuck not one, but two cameras; one on the front and one on the back. The one on the front is a VGA quality camera that is meant mainly to be used for video chatting via Facetime and for self-portraits via Photobooth. The camera on the back is and HD camera that shoots in 720p. Unfortunately when tested in the real world both cameras were subpar especially when compared to its competitors like the Xoom.

Along with the numerous hardware improvements, Apple has also updated its software for the iPad.  The iPad runs iOS 4.3 which among many things, included a very important update to the browser called the Nitro JavaScript engine. On a JavaScript benchmark test, the original iPad running iOS 4.2 got a score of 8207 ms while the same original iPad on iOS 4.3 scored only 3484.7 ms (the lower the better). That means the new browser is over 230% faster than the original! The iPad 2 running iOS 4.3 got 2173.1 ms which is fast but when compared to its rivals like the Xoom (2141.8 ms), it really is not that fast. The iPad 2 obviously has Facetime now since it has cameras but Apple has also made a version of their popular Photo Booth app for the iPad. I personally really like this app because it is able to give you a live video previews of 9 different effects that are available to take pictures with and because of the dual core processer, the iPad 2 doesn’t even struggle. If you are into movie editing then Apple has released iMovie which as you can probably guess, is an iPad version of iMovie from Macs. Surprisingly, it is very intuitive and easy to use and it includes many transitions and effects.

One new accessory that Apple has made a really big deal about is the Smart Cover. I must say, these are ingenious. You can pick either a polyurethane or leather cover at $39 and 69$ respectively. The both clip on magnetically to the iPad and keep the screen from getting scratched. They covers can also fold so that you can prop up your iPad 2 two different ways for watching a movie or typing an email. Another new accessory that you can purchase is an HDMI out cable. For 40 bucks you can mirror your iPad’s screen in full 1080p.

After the iPad came out, the tablet market erupted in new design from every big name gadget company that you can think of. Personally, I think that the iPad is definitely in the top 2 best tablets if not the being the best! The plethora of Android tablets are simply not refined and elegant enough to beat out the iPad. The Motorola Xoom is probably the only other tablet that can compete with it right now but it is much more expensive, which is a major turn off for consumers. Either way I am happy because I know that impressive devices like the iPad 2 will lead to more competition which results in better products for us! Please leave any comments below!