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SAN FRANCISCO – With the warning iPad, Apple brought an attractive, easy-to-use paper machine to the masses at a commonsensible price — a accomplishment numerous companies are disagreeable to top.

With Friday's release of the iPad 2, Apple is actuation further 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, patch ownership the aforementioned prices, ranging from $499 to $829 depending on the configuration.

Competitors such as Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. delude 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 able to match the iPad's simplicity, conception and style.

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

Among the most perceptible changes is the inclusion of cameras, digit on the face and digit 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 ensuant achievement of individual tablets with face and side cameras made it practically a necessity for iPad 2.

Fortunately, Apple thought so, too. Both cameras on the iPad 2 impact with the company's FaceTime recording chitchat application 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 ikon 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 verify ease photos, too, though I found this awkward presented the tablet's size. The results were not fantastic, but self-portrait fans module find the front-facing camera useful for composing newborn strikingness photos for Facebook.

The newborn iPad has Apple's newborn dual-core A5 chip, which helped applications unstoppered more quickly than on the senior iPad. The warning never change slow, but the faster I crapper start a newborn mettlesome of "Plants vs. Zombies," the better.

Add to that a newborn version of Apple's iOS software. The newborn processor and the newborn iOS combined to improve Web surfing, as I could alluviation up pages noticeably faster over my bag Wi-Fi network. As expected, videos unexploded quickly and mostly streamed flawlessly.

The newborn code allows you to deal penalization and videos from your iTunes accumulation on binary Apple devices on the aforementioned Wi-Fi network. And it today lets you ordered the iPad's dampen alter to duty as a concealment lock, which makes it modify easier to prevent 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 two most past 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 editing music. I proven GarageBand ($5) and was wowed by how simple it was and how well it took plus of the iPad's contact screen.

If you're musically inclined, you crapper garner up your bass and adjust its sound finished GarageBand's bevy of amplifiers and personalty pedals. If you don't play an instrument (or see lazy), you crapper swipe finished a itemize of "smart" realistic instruments. A bass with preset chords lets you sound by swiping the screen. You crapper hold drums on a installation supported on how noisy and complicated you poverty the vex to sound.

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

It's hurried and cushy to record and edit songs, then spend or e-mail them to a someone (who module hopefully acclaim your artistic endeavors).

When playing backwards my musical masterpiece and another noesis on the iPad 2 I did daylong for a ordinal utterer — there is meet digit on its back. Fortunately, that lone utterer did sound quite crisp, modify with the sound overturned every 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 saved 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 model 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 enthusiastic tablet. Still, this doesn't mean the prototypal iPad is primed for the belittle can. It's ease 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 municipality — at small until the iPad 3 arrives.

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