The second generation tablet from Apple, the iPad 2, is now a reality. The slimmer but far more powerful device features an A5 chip clocking at 1 GHz with an Apple engineered dual core design and along come the much anticipated dual cameras on the front and the rear ends to bring FaceTime to the iPad. If the initial claims of the company are to be believed, the CPU is almost twice as fast as the one on the previous version of the tablet with a 9 times increment in the graphics performance, all this while keeping the power consumption the same.
The battery life is still the same ten hours of playback and a month of standby time. The pricing of these tablets follows the same range that the previous line of iPads was available for, starting from $499 for the basic 16 GB model and going up to $829 for the top of the line one featuring 64 GB of space, WiFi and 3G capability. These iPads come with an HDMI dock capable of 1080p output which cost $39, however Thunderbolt remains absent at the moment. As was already expected to happen as per design changes, the speaker grill at the back has been enlarged a bit while the screen resolution remains the same as 1024×768 on the 10 inch LCD IPS panel similar to those on the original device.
The rear facing camera is capable of 720p video recording at 30 fps along with 5x digital zoom. The front facing version on the other hand is just a VGA which is only useful during video chats using FaceTime. The tablet is 33% thinner than its predecessor and also a bit lighter which makes it even more comfortable to hold. These tablets will be available in the market from March 11 according to Apple.
