The Apple iPad 2 Review
by Brian Klug, Anand Lal Shimpi & Vivek Gowri on March 19, 2011 8:01 PM ESTFinal Words
If you fell in love with the original iPad, the iPad 2 is a significant upgrade. You get much faster hardware, a much more ergonomic device and the ability to FaceTime with your friends. If it weren't for the fact that the iPad 3 is likely 12 months away with another set of similarly impressive upgrades I'd recommend all iPad users upgrade to the 2nd generation model.
I find that with Apple products you have to pick an upgrade cadence and firmly stick to it. In the Mac world it's difficult but not too hard to stick to. Upgrading yearly never makes financial sense so usually putting yourself on a 2 - 3 year cycle for the biggest upgraders usually works. Apple hardware tends to hold its value surprising well so as long as you do a good job of reselling your old stuff, this cadence can work well if you absolutely must have the latest and greatest.
The iOS platforms are a bit more difficult to be patient with. As you can see by the SoC upgrades Apple has thrown into the iPad 2, for the next couple of years you should expect Apple to be upgrading at a rate faster than Moore's Law. Eventually this will level off but for the iPad 2, iPad 3 and probably even the iPad 4 we'll see this sort of aggressive ramp in hardware capabilities. You really have to treat the iPad like a smartphone - it's going to be made significantly less desirable in about 12 months so plan your purchasing accordingly.
Cautious purchasing brings me to my biggest complaint about the iPad 2 - its pricing. Motorola gets a bad rap for pricing the first Xoom at $799, but there's only one iPad 2 that sells at $499. Buy a case, pick one of the higher capacity models, add 3G and you're quickly paying a lot more for the iPad 2 than you would a mainstream PC. Granted Apple doesn't make as much off of the iPad as it does other members of its product lineup, but I still feel the price is too much for a device that can only augment your existing computing devices.
I do wish Apple was able to increase display resolution on the iPad 2, although I suspect that combined with the SoC improvements that may have been a little too much for this generation. It's clear that a higher resolution panel is coming as Apple finally has an OS that properly handles DPI scaling. The real question is when, and is that time soon enough that you can hold off buying an iPad until then?
There's no better place to say this so I'll just put it out there: Apple's commitment to increasing performance deserves serious recognition. Whether or not you like the company, Apple outfitted the iPad 2 with a pair of ARM Cortex A9s and a GPU significantly faster than anything else on the market. Look around and you won't see many apps that can really stress the PowerVR SGX 543MP2 that Apple put in the A5. Make no mistake, this is about building a big install base of high performance mobile devices. Apple is eager to win the hearts of game developers with the A5. Gaming will be an important part of the tablet's evolution and Apple clearly understands that. What happens when your tablet is fast enough to run Halo? Performance matters here, maybe not as much today, but when the entire install base has PowerVR SGX 543MP2s at the bare minimum things will get really interesting.
Apple's fat trimming really improved the iPad 2's ergonomics, and the smart covers only helped improve things. While I wouldn't consider porting the original iPad around due to its limited usefulness in my workflow, the iPad 2 is thin and light enough where I'm less bothered by it. Ultimately I feel like tablets (iPad or not) have to be even thinner and even more ergonomic to really come into their own. The good news is that Apple hasn't done anything too exotic in slimming down the original iPad. I'd expect the second generation of Android tablets to be similarly thin/light.
And that brings us to the controversy, the Honeycomb comparison. The Xoom is the only real competition shipping for the iPad 2 today, but within 60 days we'll likely have competitors from ASUS and Samsung on the market as well. Honeycomb has some serious advantages in the feature department. Multitasking is better under Android 3.0, as are notifications and as of yesterday there's finally Flash support. Apple still provides a smoother UI than Honeycomb, however this time around I'm wondering how much of that might be due to the GPU horsepower behind Tegra 2. While Tegra 2 does well on a lower resolution screen, I feel like it is underpowered to deal with the Xoom's 1280 x 800 display.
Hardware-wise Apple has an ergonomics advantage over the Xoom. While I like holding the Xoom more than the original iPad, I prefer the iPad 2's feel to the Xoom. The Xoom has the edge in camera quality and display resolution, while the iPad 2 has a better looking display and a faster GPU. I still fundamentally believe that web browsing and email are the killer apps for tablets and as such I don't put too much weight in Apple's iPad app advantage. Long term I believe that the most important apps will be available on both platforms, so unless there's an app that you want today that's an iOS exclusive I wouldn't lose sleep over it.
So if you're actually torn between the iPad 2 and the Xoom my best advice is to wait. Apple needs to update iOS in a major way and Honeycomb needs a hardware update. Whichever gets it right first should get your money.
If you don't fall into the borderline camp then the decision is pretty simple. If you need a tablet that runs iOS today, the iPad 2 is great. If you're not sure, you should wait. Tablets are still a couple of generations from being really amazing. Everything between now and then are just steps along the way.
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podperson - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
Just admit that most PCs are used as toys. Heck, the whole reason the personal computer took off (in homes) was as a games platform.Most of the people I see with PCs are using them to surf the web, watch youtube, update facebook, or mess around with digital media. Where I work there are Macs and PCs available to the public with 27" monitors all open to Facebook (hint, it's a university). Exactly what is this "work" you need to do on PCs? For most people it's a little bit of text editing now.
For some kinds of things the iPad is markedly superior ergonomically to a PC (or even a tablet computer or WACOM tablet display) — e.g. sketching or various musical apps. For others a PC is markedly superior. For still others one or the other is completely useless.
michael2k - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
Except it isn't bulky nor underpowered for many things.I have a 2006 G4 iBook that is lower performance than a 2010 iPad 2. If the iPad 2 is a toy, then so is just about any early 2006 computer, including older Pentium M based laptops.
It is also far less bulky than self same 4 year old computers, with trivially 2 to 3 times the battery life.
I paid $500 so that my wife can follow my kids around, but still have a computer she can put in her purse. Without the iPad, she would have indeed settled for an iPod touch, but a netbook with a hinge? Too short a battery life and too hard to manage (Windows XP, Windows Update, AV, etc) for the harried housewife/homemaker
bigboxes - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
Just how big is her purse? As for battery life I think you are looking through rose colored glasses in emphasizing the positive qualities that your device holds. As long as the device lasts until you get home to plug it in (maybe even your vehicle) it will suffice. The iPad is too bulky and not functional enough too do day to day tasks. As I said earlier, the authors point this out.As much as we want these cute devices to succeed we find ourselves using other devices that are far more practical. I've made the same mistake myself in the past. Anyone remember the Sony Clie? Another proprietary underpowered overpriced device. I believe I paid $500 for it. It gathered dust for years until I finally put it in a box. There's the cool factor and then there's reality. Do you set it out for your friends' visits or do you actually get x value out of it?
Also, you are going to be carrying your phone with you already. Why carry both devices with you when one doesn't have more functionality over the other? I would think that the balance for function belongs to the smartphone (phone service is more valuable than screen size).
michael2k - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
Her purse is big enough to hold an iPad, a wallet, another smaller purse, a phone, keys, two Capri Suns, two candy bars, a small bag of chips, and a couple of diapers.As for battery life, that's exactly what the iPad is; it lasts as long as it needs to until it gets home to be plugged in. I cannot find a laptop under 2 pounds with similar battery life. The minimum requirement is 6 hours.
I carry my phone because I am more like Anand than not. She carries the iPad because she isn't like Anand, at all. It would be the equivalent of me driving a Civic and her driving a minivan; surely the very concept of a soccer mom and her requirements being different than a 9-5 commuter isn't lost on you?
bigboxes - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
So, we can officially say this is the official tablet of soccer moms everywhere. Yay.She carries it around not because she is unlike Anand. She carries it around because she has a strong back!
vol7ron - Sunday, March 20, 2011 - link
A lot of the "sales" are from the retail outlets and not-necessarily the end-user consumer. There's people that buy it to sell to China or other Asian countries that buy it for double it's price; there are a plethora of reviewers these days; there are the people with mass amount of wealth that buy up anything just because they can; and then the hipsters that want to be cool and fit in. It reminds me of the episode of South Park with the smug Prius drivers.I'm not saying this isn't a bad device and it's mobility makes it beneficial in many regards. But the price of its mobility does not make it as attractive as it would be at the lower price (~$250). I'm not saying it should go for $100, but you're nearing the $1000 end of the spectrum for these devices and way over that for the necessary apps and accessories.
crunc - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
I don't know why I'm getting into this argument, but all the iPads, including iPad 2's, that I'm seeing out in the world would seem to dispell your notion that no one is actually buying them for their own use. I saw 3 of them within 5 feet of me on the train this morning, for example. In 3 weeks time or so I'll be another one on the train with one, and also using it at home. I don't own a laptop. I wouldn't mind a laptop, but I'd rather have an iPad. It is, for me, far more comfortable to use then a laptop. Even the excellent trackpads on MacBooks don't compare to the entirely touch-based interface of the iPad. Obviously they aren't for everyone, but for some these are a great choice. I don't expect to write a book on it, but I then don't write books. If I ever decide to write a book, maybe I'll get a laptop.Ushio01 - Sunday, March 20, 2011 - link
It's a fasion accessory just like the iphone, to be with the "in crowd" you have to have apple products that's all there is to it. Everyone on here must know at least someone who bought an iphone and then use it only for calls and texts, I know dozens of people who have done this.crunc - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
Actually, no, I don't know anyone who has an iPhone that only uses it for texts and phone calls. Everybody I know who has one uses it for virtually everything, myself included. In fact, I rarely text and only occasionally make phone calls (mostly of the, "should I pick up a pizza?" variety). You go on living in your little dream world, though. I won't stop you. I have an order in for an iPad 2 and I'm really looking forward to it. I love my iPhone and I want something akin to a laptop, but that isn't that, because the iOS interface is fantastic and the devices are more comfortable for me to use. Sure, there's some shortcomings to the platform, but they are overwhelmed by the multitude of positives.sarahtim - Sunday, March 20, 2011 - link
I think this sort of comment represents a failure of imagination. As iPads sell million after million you have to adjust your idea of how many hipsters there are...Other people are different from you.
Speaking for myself; I find my iPad extremely useful. I use it for a number of hours each day. I don't find it clunky. To me, and this is a very personal thing, the cost was of little consequence. While it is poor taste to blurt out your relative wealth when many folks are having a rough time of it, it is the only way to answer your comment. Further, I consider iPads to be very good value. I bought the bottom of the line iPad 1. It does everything I want. The bulk of its time is spent streaming video via the Air Video app.
I represent a single data point - as do you. I fully appreciate that an iPad is a useless paperweight to you. No problem. When I use my iPad I do it in private. I don't discuss my ownership with others. I don't think I'm clever or a better person because I have one.
You would have to look at me for a very long time before you thought of a hipster. Trust me on this. :-)