Reviewing The IPad 2

It's difficult to believe that there were tablet computers available for sale before the marketing maestro, Steve Jobs, came along with his revolutionary iPad. The fact still is though that many companies had already experimented with tablets well before the iPad came along but Apple basicly revolutionised and carved a market for this kind of device and any other tablet that comes along afterwards will always be compared to the remarkable iPad.

For anyone that has tried the iPad and a rival product the differences are clear to see. Despite being underpowered compared to many other tablets on the market, the iPad 2 uses the iOS 4 which is Apple's proprietary OS and has been specifically made to work with the iPad hardware and the famous Apple styling, subtleties and intuitive UI's give this device a much better user experience than any other tablet. The touch gestures are responsive, the transitions are beautifully smooth, there are not one of the annoying pauses where you do not know if the tablet registered your touch and everything works so seamlessly that when you try a different device it just does not feel right much in the same way that folk who move to OSX vow they'll never return to Windows.

The iPad 2 comes in 2 flavors: one with wifi and one with wifi and 3G. The 3G version is a tiny bit deceptive and more of a marketing decoy as it costs $130 more to add a 3G chip which likely costs $10 at the most it just about forces folk to select just the wifi one. The storage capacity is very good with the base model beginning at 16GB and the top end model incorporates 64GB, but again the difference in storage can't justify the enormous increase in costs which makes us think that Apple truly would like for you to buy the 16GB version and then use their new iCloud service to store all of your files.

As discussed earlier, the hardware and tech specs are a little bit underwhelming in comparison to a similarly priced tablet like the Samsung Galaxy Tab. The 1 GHz dual core processor and 512 GB RAM is comparable to what you would find on the Kindle Fire which is less than fifty percent of the price but since the iOS is so efficient and well optimised you would think the iPad 2 has more than double the processing power of the Fire. There are built-in cameras in the back and front of the iPad 2, but the less said about them the better. Apple have been particularly shy about the details of this camera and for good reason also, the rear camera is a paltry 0.7 mega pixels and the front camera is a pathetic 0.3 megapixels - Apple truly held out on the cameras.

The iPad 2 is a true productivity device thanks to the fantastic iOS and massive screensize. With in-built office apps you can easily prepare reports, charts, presentations, edit graphics and really get arty thanks to Apple's pre-installed programs. If you're attempting to find something to replace your laptop then the iPad 2 actually comes close as it lets you do everything you would typically do on a standard computer.

Having said that, the iPad 2 also makes an excellent media consumption device too thanks to its support of a gigantic array of video files and codecs, giant 9.7inch screen and of course access to the iTunes App Store where you can stream movies, download music and purchase literally millions of programmes that may add use to your tablet. The battery will not disappoint you either with an all day charge of nearly 10 hours even when you're surfing the net.

The only true downside to the iPad 2 is the cost. The indisputable fact that it's an Apple means you're paying up to 30% more for the Apple logo on the front. A device with the same technical specification would potentially cost half of the amount, while it probably wouldn't have the same finesse as the iOS. There's also the lock in that Apple forces upon you but this is becoming increasingly common nowadays with Barnes & Noble and Amazon taking an analogous approach with their lower cost tablets.

About the author: James Perron loves to write technical articles and book reviews about Arduino.

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