Performance of ipad-2

We expected the iPad 2 to be faster and it did not disappoint. On the homescreen the difference is not perceptible, but fire up some applications and the dual-core processor immediately makes its presence felt. In Maps, for example, the map curling animation for showing additional options faltered on the iPad, but was butter smooth on the iPad 2. We loaded some 3D games and immediately noticed a smoother framerate on the iPad 2. In some cases, the difference wasn't noticeable. Only those apps that pushed the limits of the first iPad's hardware show noticeable improvements on the iPad 2.

Developers are already coming out with games that take advantage of the iPad 2's improved hardware. Games such as Infinity Blade now have better details, textures and anti-aliasing effects on the iPad 2.

The extra RAM comes in handy while web browsing or multitasking. On the iPad if you open several heavy pages one after the other, by the time you reach the last one, the browser would have removed the first page from the memory, causing it to reload when you try to access it again. This is not a problem anymore on the iPad 2. Also, when scrolling, you see the chequered pattern far less, unless you scroll really fast. While multitasking, if you open too many applications on the iPad, it would eventually close them in the background and when you try to access them they would restart instead of resuming their state. Again, this does not happen on the iPad 2.

If you thought that becoming thinner would affect the performance of the loudspeaker then you were wrong. The loudspeaker actually sounds better than before. It is slightly louder and has better clarity. In comparison, the iPad's loudspeaker sounds slightly muffled as if being blocked by something. The iPad 2 loudspeaker also uses the surface to bounce sound off, something the iPad cannot. We are still disappointed by the lack of stereo loudspeaker on the device though. Having the sound coming from one corner of such a large device feels weird and imbalanced, even if it is clearer than before.

One of the major additions to the iPad 2 are the cameras on board. Unfortunately, their quality leaves a lot to be desired. It almost feels as if Apple added them only for the sake of having them and not because they wanted to. The cameras are same as the ones used in the iPod touch. The camera on the back is capable of recording 720p video of decent quality. The still images, however, are quite poor in detail and very noisy.

The front camera will be used mostly for video calls and for that purpose it has good enough quality. We do have an issue with the location of the camera. As we noted in our Samsung Galaxy Tab review, the camera is located way too high from the center of the display. This means when you look at the screen at the other person, the other person will feel as if you are looking down somewhere and not at them. If you look at the lens the other person will feel you are looking at them, then you cannot see the screen below.

This wasn't much of a problem on the iPhone 4 or the iPod touch, where the camera is located very close to the center of the display. Also, if you hold the device as you usually do, then your face will appear at the bottom of the screen. You will then have to tilt the iPad 2 for your face to appear in the middle of the screen. If only Apple had tilted the camera slightly, it would have solved this situation. As for the first problem, there is no way to solve that. Holding the device sideways only makes things