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SAN FRANCISCO – With the warning iPad, Apple brought an attractive, easy-to-use paper computer to the group at a reasonable toll — a accomplishment numerous companies are disagreeable to top.

With Friday's release of the iPad 2, Apple is actuation boost ahead, with improvements that make an already superior paper modify more enticing. It goes to exhibit that when it comes to tablets, Apple refuses to be bested.

The newborn iPad is skinnier, faster and slightly lighter. It comes with cameras for recording chatting and snapping photos, while ownership the aforementioned prices, ranging from $499 to $829 depending on the configuration.

Competitors such as Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. sell good tablets of their own, with some of the aforementioned features. Motorola's newborn Xoom modify has a higher-resolution concealment than the iPad. Still, nobody has been healthy to correct the iPad's simplicity, conception and style.

The iPad 2 looks such same the prototypal iPad, though it has a sleeker, device body with a arching back. All this helps the paper good more naturally in my hands, and the modified appearance makes it easier to hold for daylong e-reading sessions, for example.

Among the most noticeable changes is the body of cameras, one on the face and one on the back.

This is something I've been yearning for, as the iPad's concise display, activity 9.7 inches diagonally, seemed same the ideal sheet for recording chat. The subsequent achievement of individual tablets with face and rear cameras made it practically a necessity for iPad 2.

Fortunately, Apple intellection so, too. Both cameras on the iPad 2 impact with the company's FaceTime recording chitchat covering and the backwards camera shoots high-definition videos.

A someone I chatted with over FaceTime touched pretty smoothly on the iPad's screen, though the image could hit been such sharper. With the face camera, my someone could see me. If I switched to the backwards camera, I could exhibit him my surroundings.

You crapper take still photos, too, though I found this awkward presented the tablet's size. The results were not fantastic, but self-portrait fans module encounter the front-facing camera multipurpose for composing newborn strikingness photos for Facebook.

The newborn iPad has Apple's newborn dual-core A5 chip, which helped applications open more apace than on the senior iPad. The warning never felt slow, but the faster I crapper move a newborn game of "Plants vs. Zombies," the better.

Add to that a newborn edition of Apple's iOS software. The newborn processor and the newborn iOS compounded to meliorate Web surfing, as I could load up pages noticeably faster over my bag Wi-Fi network. As expected, videos loaded apace and generally streamed flawlessly.

The newborn code allows you to deal penalization and videos from your iTunes library on binary Apple devices on the aforementioned Wi-Fi network. And it today lets you set the iPad's dampen alter to function as a concealment lock, which makes it modify easier to preclude my Netflix flick from rotating mid-scene meet because I've shifted my laughingstock on the couch.

The updated iOS comes with iPad 2 and is acquirable as a liberated download for the warning iPad and the digit most recent models of the iPhone and iPod Touch.

On Friday, Apple is also actuation discover iPad versions of its iMovie video-editing code and GarageBand code for recording and redaction music. I proven GarageBand ($5) and was wowed by how simple it was and how well it took advantage of the iPad's contact screen.

If you're musically inclined, you crapper garner up your bass and change its good finished GarageBand's bevy of amplifiers and effects pedals. If you don't endeavor an helper (or see lazy), you crapper swipe finished a itemize of "smart" realistic instruments. A bass with preset chords lets you strum by swiping the screen. You crapper arrange drums on a grid based on how clamorous and complicated you want the beat to sound.

The coolest part is how huffy the realistic instruments are. Start fighting your fingers on a realistic study kit, and you crapper hit the drums and cymbals harder or softer. You'll intend assorted sounds if you hit the ride cymbal in assorted places, and you crapper modify touch the rim of the snare instead of meet touch the study itself.

It's quick and easy to achievement and modify songs, then spend or e-mail them to a someone (who module hopefully acclaim your artistic endeavors).

When activity backwards my musical masterpiece and another content on the iPad 2 I did daylong for a ordinal utterer — there is meet one on its back. Fortunately, that lone utterer did good quite crisp, modify with the good overturned all the way up.

Like the prototypal iPad, the iPad 2 is rated for up to 10 hours of battery life, and it performed same a champ. Playing a intermixture of videos streamed from YouTube over Wi-Fi and ransomed on the iPad itself, I got a taste more than 10 hours of entertainment before it died.

You crapper buy versions that impact with either AT&T's or Verizon Wireless' cellular network, kinda than meet AT&T before. The cheapest help connects exclusive finished Wi-Fi. You crapper also intend it in black or white — before, your exclusive option was black.

Without question, the iPad 2 is a great tablet. Still, this doesn't mean the prototypal iPad is ready for the belittle can. It's still a stellar gadget, and today it's cheaper (while supplies last) with the achievement of a successor.

Should you see the propose to hit the stylish and greatest, however, go for it. Chances are, it module be the prizewinning paper in town — at small until the iPad 3 arrives.

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