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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synaesthetic - Sunday, March 20, 2011 - link
Touchscreens are the very antithesis of good ergonomics. Unless haptic feedback can defy physics or we get some deformable/flexible screens, devices with actual buttons will always be superior.The human brain simply reacts better to physically pushing a button. Touchscreens have horrible ergonomics--a tiny bit of vibration is not really much haptic feedback. It feels like a lot to us (and it certainly helps me on my phone) but it only feels like that beccause a touchscreen is so far away from any semblance of "natural use."
Touchscreens should be used when they are REQUIRED--such as on smartphones, where the number of controls, commands and options far outstrip the physical size of the device and the physical space to place buttons.
I don't think tablets will ever stop being a toy.
stephenbrooks - Saturday, March 19, 2011 - link
Page 2, final picture. The iPad 2 is on the BOTTOM not the top there.Anand Lal Shimpi - Saturday, March 19, 2011 - link
Fixed! Thanks :)Omid.M - Saturday, March 19, 2011 - link
"There's also the idea of synergy among devices. Even if you play within the Apple universe and own a Mac, an iPhone and an iPad, there's no magical way of sharing data and applications between them. I should be able to work on my Mac, step away and have my apps/data come with me. Your best bet is something like Dropbox but that's no where near the type of cohesive solution I'm talking about. Think HP's webOS touch-to-share but on steroids and you're on the right track."Anand/Brian/Vivek:
I'm sure that's what Apple is planning with NFC-enabled iOS devices, but then wouldn't that require a saved state to be stored in the cloud and then re-downloaded on demand on the next device used? I would imagine that "lag" in the UX would be a problem. How long would you feasibly have to wait for stuff to download the first time you sit down with a new device (new as in rotation) ?
Also, would this be limited to stock-Apple stuff only? It would be a bear for Apple to save the state of arbitrary 3rd party software from one device to the next (assuming both devices have the client installed). Right?
Next...
"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."
This is really the money statement of the review. I think Android tab makers need to NOT simply look at the iPad 2 to figure out their next move, but to pave their own path, not for the path to be a RESPONSE to the competition. The Xoom should have higher quality display for sure, and Honeycomb needs faster incremental updates. I really liked it but it just lacks so much in terms of functionality and compatibility, at least if we're considering it for productivity.
None of the tabs on the market right now are really meant for editing/creating content--even if you're able to with a handful of apps--but simply consuming existing content (iTunes music streaming, sharing videos, social networking--and I think that's the biggest issue with tablet to replace netbooks or become devices taken seriously.
Please, please cover the WebOS tablet when it comes out.
Thanks for the review, guys. Great work. The technical section on glass, for instance, is one reason with AT does the best reviews.
Worth the read. Will tweet for others to check it out!
-Omid
clb - Monday, April 4, 2011 - link
I agree on both, but the point on #1 is missed. It is not the need for the cloud on NFC, but the fact that you cannot actually sync the device:>I should be able to work on my Mac, step away and have my apps/data come with me.
Even if you are going from a Mac to the iPad (1 or 2), there is no sync feature that covers everything. A note created on the iPad has to be emailed to your Mac; Apple will not let you read a note created on the iPad on a Mac unless you email it to yourself! And there is no way to get a note into the Likewise, using DropBox is great, but now files have to be loaded up, then you must reconnect, then load down. You cannot simply have the Mac send to the iPad or vice versa.
This is because unlike the early iPods, the iPhones and iPads do not allow the user to move files. Early iPods could be treated as FireWire drives. Not the iOs devices. Everything must go through iTunes or via the cloud (i.e., third-party sites). If I'm at a beach house with no cloud connection, and want to move content from my PC/Mac to my iPad, I'm SOL in many cases.
This is bad.
Adam Chew - Saturday, March 19, 2011 - link
Judging from your review of the iPad, its competitors will stand no chance of ever gaining traction in everyday use.So get a Macbook Air.....LOL
The problem is the everyday user is not a tech blog blogger, the iPad is ideal for consumption of everything of the net and not like some tech blogger who needs to blog unnecessarily with a laptop when an iPad is at hand.
nickdoc - Sunday, March 20, 2011 - link
Loved your contribution! The geek talk was getting really boring and repetitive. Hello! Normal people have needs, too. This is what the reviewers often forget. Not everyone needs to create content to be consumed by other creators of mostly the same content. Lol!stephenbrooks - Saturday, March 19, 2011 - link
OK, why where you joining *two iPads* together with magnets and buying a "smart vase" from Apple? :D"The iPad aligns and attaches to the body of the iPad 2 using six magnets along its side that line up with a similar set of magnets on the device. When I acquired the smart vase at launch, I [...]"
Anand Lal Shimpi - Saturday, March 19, 2011 - link
Fixed again :)tipoo - Saturday, March 19, 2011 - link
How the f does it work?