iPad 2 is now official, what changed?

Apple finally revealed the highly-anticipated successor to their iPad and a lot of people are already excited about it and can’t wait for the March 11 release in the US. If you’re curious as to how much it changed from the original iPad, you would be surprised that there’s not a lot. However, despite the few changes, these are major ones that would most likely make the owners of an original iPad get the iPad 2.

Major changes

Apple made a few but big changes on their iPad 2. It’s now faster and more powerful, has a front and rear cam, thinner and lighter, and it also inherited the gyroscope from the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4G. Basically that’s it.

The iPad 2 now sports a dual-core 1GHz Apple A5 processor which would greatly boost the performance of applications and games. There’s nothing wrong really with the original iPad  in terms of speed but you would feel a teeny bit of delay every once in a while and this boost in processing power is a welcome upgrade. It’s not the fastest processor around though as upcoming Android tablets have dual-cores already clocking at 1.5GHz.

Front and rear cam on the iPad makes it usable for Facetime. Right now, Facetime doesn’t get much practical use since devices supporting it are limited. Putting Facetime on the iPad 2 makes sense for Apple. However, I’m thinking that people would still prefer Skype over it.

You probably won’t use the iPad as a camera a lot so don’t make a big deal out of the iPad 2’s fixed focus camera which is similar to that of the iPod Touch 4G. It’s not a good shooter but there are lot of apps that can make shooting photos with it fun, and it’s very decent for recording videos if you don’t mind looking funny while recording with it.

What I really like about the iPad 2 is that they made it thinner and lighter. The old iPad was rather bulky and the weight was very noticeable that holding it for a prolonged time (like when showing your photos) can put a strain on your wrist. The iPad 2 has a slim 8.8mm form and is 79g lighter than the original iPad.

Gyroscope was included to make some games, especially racing, more engaging and fun.

That’s pretty much about it. Battery life is still the same. Unfortunately, so is the display. It’s still stuck at a 1024 x 768 resolution with the IPS LCD technology for better viewing angles. No retina display. No SD card slot although it now has an HDMI out for Apple to make money off proprietary dongles.

The iPad Smart Cover looks awesome though but it will be sold separately as an accessory. Way better than the original iPad’s folio.

Pricing

The iPad 2 will start shipping on March 11th in the US with the following pricing:

Specs comparison

Here’s the side by side specs comparison of the original iPad and the iPad 2: