Apple iPad 2 Tablet eBook Reader Review

Introduction

Front

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Back

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Sides

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In the Box

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As well as the iPad itself, you get:
* USB cable
* 10W USB power adapter
* Basic documentation

No video or other cables are included in the package.

Handling

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The iPad 2 has slightly smaller dimensions than the original iPad: it weighs slightly less (1.3lbs against 1.5lbs for the original) and is a bit thinner, at 0.88 inches thick. The original iPad was 0.51 inches thick. Even with the thinner, lighter form factor, the device is still a little hard to hold with a single hand. The iPad still doesn't come with a stand, but this time around Apple is offering specialized iPad covers that can double as a stand to tilt the screen up for viewing. We expect that a slew of other cases designed to make it easier to hold will appear over the next few months.

Screen

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The Apple iPad 2's screen is the same size and resolution as the previous model: 9.7 inches diagonally, with a resolution of 1024 by 768 pixels. The picture looks as sharp as it did on the original, and has responsive touch controls.

Indoor & Outdoor Use

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You aren't going to limit your iPad 2 use to a dark or dim room, so the device has to hold up well under various lighting conditions. Like the previous iPad, the screen is very reflective. If you're using the iPad 2 outside on a bright, sunny day, you'll notice reflections in the screen and a significant loss of contrast.

NOTE: The images above are shot with a variety of lighting sources, which may cause some color shift.

The backlit LCD lets it perform very well at lower light levels, but gets increasingly hard to read as the light levels increase. Compare this performance to an eInk reader like the Amazon Kindle, and you’ll see the advantage the eInk technology has over LCDs.

This test currently tests brightnesses up to 14,000 lux. To put this number in perspective, it’s like standing in the shade on a sunny day: there’s no direct sunlight, but it’s still fairly bright. If you didn’t have that shade and were in direct sunlight, however, that would put you in the 100,000 lux range: the iPad 2 screen would be unreadable under these conditions. While the iPad 2 works great under many lighting conditions, you’ll definitely run into problems when you run out of cloud cover.

Legibility

To test legibility, we feed the device several test images (both text and illustrations), which we photograph, magnify, and examine.

As you can see from the samples above, the iPad 2 has no legibility issues. We found that that iPad 2’s screen performed about as well as its predecessor’s: it has a sharp, clear screen that produces crisp text and bright colors.

Reflectance

One area where eInk has the advantage over LCDs is screen reflectivity. A reflective screen will get washed out by external light much more easily than an eInk display. On this test, we measure the amount of light the screen reflects by using two kinds of light sources: ambient light and a direct light source. We found that the iPad 2 reflected about 11 per cent of the light that hit the screen, which is somewhat on the high side. We also found that the screen does little to soften the reflection, as the photos below show. In the real world, this means that you will see distracting reflections in the screen.

Screen Size & DPI

A screen’s dpi, or dots per inch, is important for creating sharp text and vivid colors: the higher the pixel density, the finer the details. The iPad 2’s screen measures 5.8 inches wide by 7.4 inches tall. Since the screen’s resolution is 768 by 1024 pixels, that means you’re getting 132 dots per inch (dpi). This is average for an LCD display.

Interestingly enough, the iPhone 4 actually has a much higher dpi: 326. Apple didn’t upgrade the iPad’s screen this time around, but they are no doubt considering it.

Blacks and Whites

In order to get the highest contrast out of your iPad 2, you’ll have to turn off the automatic screen brightness feature and crank the backlight to its maximum. The result will be very bright: about 381 candelas per square meter (cd/m² ). To put this in perspective, most LCD HDTVs output between 2-300 cd/m² , and the Barnes & Noble Nook Color only managed to output 178 cd/m² . If you need a makeshift flashlight, the iPad 2 will be more than happy to oblige.

We measured the iPad 2’s black level at 0.54 cd/m² , which isn’t bad for a portable screen: it’s about four times as bright as a deep black on a TV.

Now that we have the black and white level, we can find the device’s contrast ratio, which is approximately 718:1. The interesting thing here is that both the blacks and whites are a little higher than the original iPad, but the contrast ratio is identical. Rather than there being some sort of improvement, we would put this difference down to the occasional variations we see between individual backlights in displays like this. With an identical contrast ratio, you are not going to see any real difference between the two iPads unless you are looking at them side by side.

Color Gamut

The color gamut describes the range of colors the device will display. There’s an international standard that defines a display’s color gamut, Rec. 709, and that’s what we judge display performance against. We found the iPad 2 wasn’t too far off from Rec. 709. The red and green points were very close to what the standard specifies, but the blue is a little off, which could make blue skies look a little lighter than they should. But we doubt this will be a serious issue. We also noticed no significant difference here between the iPad and the iPad 2.

Battery Life

We expected that the iPad 2 would have identical battery life to the original iPad, given that the battery is about the same size. But we were wrong: the iPad 2 has significantly improved battery life for reading eBooks and playing video. However, the eBooks battery life remains significantly shorter than those we got from eInk devices like the Kindle and Sony Readers. The bottom line is that the iPad 2 will be fine for a daily commute or a day or two out of the office, but you’ll need to recharge for anything longer. It is also worth noting that the iPad and iPad 2 took a long time to charge: both required several hours connected to the included charger or a powered USB port before the battery was 100% charged.

Controls

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Most of your interaction with the iPad 2 will be through the touchscreen. The only physical controls are the home button on the device's front, the power button on its top, and the silent/screen rotation lock and volume controls on its right side.

The iPad 2's touchscreen is incredibly responsive and accurate. While typing on it isn't quite as fast as using a keyboard, once you've gotten used to the interface the controls are incredibly easy. The only thing the iPad 2 lacks is a form of haptic or tactile feedback.

Connectivity

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There are two different models of the iPad 2: the WiFi and WiFi + 3G. Both devices support Wi-Fi over 802.11a/b/g/n.

The 3G model is available either on AT&T or Verizon in the US. Internationally, it'll be sold with access to a national carrier, and unlocked, meaning it'll work with any GSM network that runs on its frequencies.

The iPad 2 supports the following frequencies: UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz) and GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz).

Both iPad 2 models support Bluetooth version 2.1 with EDR technology. We found the devices didn't support the full range of Bluetooth profiles, however: while A2DP and AVRCP are supported, we found HFP (the hands-free profile) was not. It is also not possible to transfer images over Bluetooth to or from the iPad 2.

Battery Life

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We expected that the iPad 2 would have identical battery life to the original iPad, given that the battery is about the same size. But we were wrong: the iPad 2 has significantly improved battery life for reading eBooks and playing video. However, the eBooks battery life remains significantly shorter than those we got from eInk devices like the Kindle and Sony Readers. The bottom line is that the iPad 2 will be fine for a daily commute or a day or two out of the office, but you'll need to recharge for anything longer. It is also worth noting that the iPad and iPad 2 took a long time to charge: both required several hours connected to the included charger or a powered USB port before the battery was 100% charged.

Reading Books

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The Apple iPad 2 is a fairly intuitive eReader. The iBooks app's interface resembles a bookshelf and lets you browse your titles by cover art. Scrolling the screen down will let you search for books or change to a list view.

Reading eBooks is done with a swipe of the screen or by tapping the left or right side. Tapping the left side or swiping a finger from the left to right will flip to the previous page; tapping the right side or swiping your finger from right to left will turn to the next page. The top of the screen contains shortcuts for your library, a table of contents and list of your bookmarks, a screen brightness toggle, font controls, a search feature, and a bookmark button.

Buying Books

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While the iPad 2's de facto eBook reader is iBooks, you can download apps from most of the major eBook retailers. To use the iBooks store, however, juts open the app and click the link to the store. The iBooks store looks very similar to the App Store, with links at the bottom for featured and chart-topping eBooks, a browse button for viewing books by author, a search feature, and a link to previously purchased eBooks. For more on what the iPad 2 offers, check out our comparison of online eBook stores.

eBook Formats

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The iBooks application on the iPad 2 supports a decent range of e-book formats, allowing you to read ePub, text and PDF files without conversion: just sync them over to the device with iTunes. While the device doesn't support eBooks bought through other stores, such as Amazon’s Kindle store or Kobo, you can use those stores' apps to download content onto the iPad 2. It's a bit of a hoop to jump through, but at least the option is there.

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Newspapers & Magazines

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The iPad 2 offers several newspaper and magazine apps, some of which are free to download, but charge you per issue. You'll have to download the apps for these publications, though, as the iBooks app currently only offers eBooks.

Music & Audio Controls

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If you've used an iPod before, you're familiar with the iPad 2's music software. When you're playing a song, all the playback controls are at the bottom of the screen, and there's a progress bar along the top you can scrub left and right to skip within the song. You can also set a repeat or shuffle from this screen. Clicking the top right icon will take you to the song's album and lets you rate the song on a five-point scale.

The iPad 2 does features an equalizer, but it's limited to presets. For most users, this list of 22 presets will be comprehensive: acoustic, bass booster, bass reducer, classical, dance, deep, electronic, flat, hip hop, jazz, Latin, loudness, lounge, piano, pop, R & B, Rock, small speakers, spoken word, treble booster, treble reducer, and vocal booster. If you want more controls over your frequency bands, however, you're out of luck.

Music & Audio Management

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You can navigate through the various lists and song groupings by flicking you finger up and down to scroll vertically. Between the quick scrolling and the ability to quickly skip between letters via the alphabet trailing down the right side of the screen, it's easy to find what you're looking for. You can sort your music by playlist, artist, album, compilation, song, genre, or composer. Apple had the foresight to keep audio books and podcasts in their own categories, so you can easily keep them out of your music playlists.

You can also create and edit playlists on the iPad 2. To create a playlist, you just hunt through your albums and songs and choose which ones to include. You can also edit existing playlists by opening them and clicking the "edit" button.

Music & Audio Battery Life

Video Controls

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The Apple iPad 2 handles video in much the same way as audio. Open up the iPod app and you'll find your videos in their own separate section. When a video is playing, the onscreen controls will hide, but tapping the screen will bring them up again. These offer all the basic playback functionality, along with a progress bar you can drag to skip around.

Video Management

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Again, the iPad 2 manages video much like audio: you can sort and search the files in much the same way. Your videos will be arranged in a list you can navigate with vertical swipes along the touchscreen. The faster the swipe, the faster the list will scroll, making fast navigation very easy. For long lists of videos, use the alphabet along the right side of the screen to jump to that letter.

You can make playlists of videos just like you could with music. Either created the playlist in iTunes and sync it over, or create it on the device itself. Making a playlist on the iPad 2 is pretty easy: just click the playlist button, add playlist, and click on the different videos you want.

Video Formats

Internet Video

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Watching streaming video on the iPad 2 will open up a QuickTime app separate from your Safari or YouTube app. The video will have all the same playback features as the iPod app, and it will return you to either Safari or YouTube when the video is over. Unfortunately, unless you're watching YouTube or a file the QuickTime player recognizes, you're out of luck: these are the only ones supported at the moment. Fortunately, many sites now offer Apple-friendly versions of their sites. For those that don't, an app is usually available, such as the Hulu Plus App, which costs $7.99 per month).

Video Battery Life

Email

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The iPad 2 features a pretty robust email client that most users will find more than adequate. The app supports POP, IMAP, Exchange, and website-specific email, such as Gmail, AOL, Yahoo and others. The email app is pretty easy to use and we were able to set up a few different email accounts without issue.

The only issues we had with the device was its lackluster search and organizational features. While they'll be adequate for most users, we found the search was often finicky: searching archived emails was slow and sometimes wouldn't turn up the desired email. Additionally, while the email client will support files you've made in your original email client, it doesn't let you alter or add new folders or tags.

If you're looking for a more robust email app, you're out of luck: Apple feels other email clients are redundant and bars them from the App Store.

Web Browsing

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The Safari app is one of the better mobile web browsers currently available. It features everything you'd find on a desktop version and provides a smooth, intuitive online experience. The touch controls are similar to those used on other Apple touchscreen or on the MacBooks' touchpad: make a pinching motion to zoom out, and do a reverse-pinch motion to zoom in. The app supports multiple pages open at once, lets you organize your bookmarks into folders, and will allow you to created desktop shortcuts to specific pages. The browser can also be customized with up to 9 thumbnails of web pages, similar to what Opera does.

Internet Apps

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Apple's App Store is a monster, with hundreds of thousands of apps available, both free and paid. The range of functionality available is really quite impressive, spanning from high functionality business applications to low brow humor. The App Store also has quite a few high-production games coming available, as many major game developers have re-released or produced original content for the iPad 2.

Although the App Store has quite a few selections, it's a bit of a walled garden—it's a huge landscape, sure, but it's closed off nonetheless. All apps, both free and paid, have to be approved by Apple before they'll appear in the store. This means you won't find a new email client or internet browser: Apple feels these offer redundant functionality. Again, despite censorship and monopoly maintenance, the Apple offers more apps than any other platform out there, including Android (at least as of the publish date).

Apple iPad

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Device & Specs

From the outside, the two iPads look quite different. The iPad 2 has the same size screen and front, but the overall device is smaller and thinner. This makes it a little easier to hold, but it is still somewhat heavy and awkward to hold for longer periods.

Screen

The screen of the two iPads is identical. There was some speculation before launch that Apple might use the higher resolution screen of the iPhone 4, but they did not, sticking with the same screen as the original iPad.

Battery

Our battery tests of the iPad Vs the iPad 2 are still ongoing, but we do no expect any major differences: the battery built into the two devices is identical.

eReader

Both devices have the same pros and cons as eReaders: big, bright screens that produce sharp text and images, but a tendency to fade and become almost unreadable in direct sunlight.

Internet

Both devices offer an excellent internet experience, with good email support an an excellent web browser that feels like a desktop browser. The dual core processor of the iPad 2 does make some difference here: we found that web browsing and screen scrolling was a little smoother than the original iPad.

Samsung Galaxy Tab

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Device & Specs

The Android Vs Apple war is the biggest skirmish of the tech wars at the moment, with both camps promoting their innovations as the way forward. And that's good for users, with both platforms focusing on making their products better and easier to use. But they remains quite different, with the iPad 2 providing the easier to use, more polished user experience, and the Android powered Samsung Tab providing more features and openness. We'd recommend that novice and nervous users go for the iPad, while tech experts will fee more at home with the Android Samsung Tab

Screen

Both devices use LCD screens, but the iPad screen is brighter and significantly larger. This does give it a more natural feel when reading books or watching video, but it comes at a cost: we found shorter battery life on the original iPad when playing a video. We'll update our review with the results from teh iPad 2 when our tests are run.

Battery

We are still testing the battery life of the iPad 2, but it was a pretty even battle between the two in our tests on the Galaxy Tab and the original iPad, we found that the two were quite evenly matched, with similar battery lives of a few hours when reading an eBook and playing video. Both were blown out of the water with the eBook reading by the Kindle, though, which we estimate would keep filling the pages for over 16 days.

Internet

Both devices offer a great Internet experience, with good email support and excellent web browsers. The iPad has the larger number of apps available, but the Galaxy Tab has the wider range, with apps available that replace the original browser and email functions: something that Apple does not allow.

Amazon Kindle Keyboard

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Device & Specs

The two favorites for the title of the top eBook reader or tablet are very different devices, with the Kindle in the featherweight class (at just 8.5 ounces) and the iPad being a heavyweight, at just over 20 ounces. The two devices take a different design approach as as well, with the Kindle being purely an eBook reader, while the iPad is designed to replace a laptop by offering eBook, music, video and the ability to expand the functions by running apps purchased online. So, the choice between the two comes down to what you want. If you want to just read books on the road, the Kindle is the best pick. If you want to read books (except in direct sun), listen to music, watch videos, play games and browse the web, the iPad 2 is the way to go.

Screen

The two devices take different approaches when it comes to the screen. The iPad offers a big, bright LCD screen, while the Kindle has a smaller e-ink screen that has no backlight. The result is a different set of strengths and weaknesses, with the iPad offering a bigger screen that looks great indoors, but poor outside. The Kindle, however, offers a screen that is sharp and readable in everything from very dim light to direct tropical sun.

Battery

Our battery life tests of the iPad 2 are underway, but one thing we do know is that the battery will not last as long as the Kindle when reading an eBook. While the original iPad was only good for a few hours of reading, the Kindle lasted the full 24 hours of our test, and would, we estimate, keep going for over 16 days.

eReader

The experience of reading books on these two devices is quite different, with the passive eInk screen of the Kindle providing more subtle, smooth look and the iPad providing a big, bright screen. Think of it as being like a paperback Vs a coffee table hardback: both have their benefits, but one is good for a vacation and one is good for putting on a table to impress visitors.

Internet

The iPad is the winner as an internet device with no competition. The Kindle includes a web browser, but it is slow and awkward to use. The iPad includes good email support and an excellent web browser that is as easy and comfortable to use as a desktop web browser.

Conclusion

Performance

The iPad 2 is a definite step up from the original iPad, offering more power for smoother browsing and page-flipping, plus a smaller, sleeker profile that makes it more portable. But it is still a farily hefty thing that requires some commitment to carry around on a daily basis.

Screen Performance

The screen of the iPad 2 is unchanged from the original iPad. That's not a bad thing, though; the screen is clear and bright and has a good contrast range. It might have been nice to see the higher DPI that the iPhone 4 offers, though; the retina display of that device makes things much clearer on the screen. The screen also does not hold up well outdoors, though: in bright daylight and direct sunlight, the screen becomes pale and difficult to read, so it would not be a good pick for reading books by the pool on a tropical vacation. But the screen looks great indoors and under more moderate lighting.

Battery Life

We expected that the battery life of the iPad 2 would be unchanged from the original iPad because the battery size is unchanged according to a teardown of the device. However, that doesn't seem to be the case: the battery life is significantly improved on the iPad 2, with both the video and eBook reading tests lasting an additional hour, and significantly more power in reserve after our 24 hour audio test. One possible culprit here is that the backlight on our test model seems to be slightly dimmer than the one on the original iPad, so it may be running at a lower power level and consuming less power. Whatever the reason, the iPad 2 seems to have improved battery life over the original.

Ereader:

The iPad 2 remains like the original iPad: a glossy, hardback book of an eReader device that looks great and attracts admiring glances, but which you might not want to carry around all the time. The weight reduction (from 23 ounces down to just over 20) is welcome, as is the thinner, sleeker profile, but it still remains a relatively large device compared to the Kindle.

Audio & Video:

The iPad 2 excels at audio and video, especially the latter, which looks great on the big, bright screen. If you want to watch movies and TV shows on the road, the iPad is an excellent pick, and the availability of apps such as Hulu Plus, which provide streaming TV shows, just sweetens the deal.

Email & Web Browsing:

The iPad 2 offers a great web experience: the Safari browser is as fully featured and easy to use as the desktop version. The extra processing power that the dual core processor adds definitely seems to help here as well: the browser scrolls more smoothly, and image-heavy pages appear quicker.