Quick Review: Spending 30 Seconds with the iPad 2

We love gadgets, but we can’t always have them when we want them. Thanks to big box stores, though, we can at least play with them and pretend we own them. I got my hands on an iPad 2 for about 30 seconds and here are some quick impressions about Apple’s currently sold-out device …

At first blush, (unless the model you’re using has a white bezel), you might not notice it’s the iPad 2. In fact, it looks so similar to the original iPad that if it wasn’t for the iPad 2 sign over the display model (and the smart cover), I would have walked by assuming it was the original still on display.

But the changes are apparent when you get up close and personal. The iPad 2 is considerably thinner, and feels good in your hands. I liked the curved back of the original iPad and I thought I’d miss it with the iPad 2, but the new flat back actually feels better. Why? It’s more like holding a magazine and less like a futuristic gadget. I think that was Apple’s point.

That being said, Apple also shrunk the bezel a bit. Not too much, but enough to feel like the device is slightly smaller, and by proxy, the screen feels bigger by comparison. I looked at a white bezel model and found it looked “dirtier” than the black model because it shows fingerprints and oily smudges more than its black counterpart, but I’m still determined to get a white one.

The SmartCover is cool, but other than for protection and transportation, I wouldn’t want it on my iPad. When it’s rolled up behind the iPad, it was unwieldy to hold in my left hand, and if I held the iPad in my right hand, the cover just hung there awkwardly. I tend read with my iPad in the vertical orientation, but if you’re the horizontal-orientation, coffee-while-browsing-type person, then the cover might do you some good.

I didn’t benchmark the iPad 2, but empirically, the iPad 2 seemed speedier than the original. Switching between pages was snappy, and loading apps seemed effortless, without pause. No sooner had I tapped the icon and Safari was already loaded up with pages. The delay between actions is almost nonexistent. It reminded me of how it felt moving from my first-generation iPod Touch to my iPhone 4.

It’s true that the cameras are horrible. Even on a 1024×768 screen, the image looked blurry. But that’s the not the point of the iPad 2 — the cameras are for communicating via FaceTime, not professional photography. The iPad 2’s special sauce is definitely the new internals, which clearly have opened the door to bigger and better apps. The cameras will be supplementary to the new apps, be it for scanning barcodes or augmented reality, but it’s not for taking panoramas of the Grand Canyon.

Bottom line? It’s worth the investment. You may get better cameras and an upgraded display if you hold out for iPad 3, but if you can sell your iPad 1 (or never had an iPad 1), go treat yourself. I’m looking forward to churning through large PDFs and HD video, along with the inevitable onslaught of iPad 2-only apps that take full advantage of Apple’s new CPU.

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