Yesterday iPad 2 was officially introduced in Europe, including Poland. Unfortunately, polish introduction should rather be called Warsaw introduction, because there were some supply problems in other cities. Also the supply of the new Apple slate was quite limited and not everyone was able to get their hands on the long-awaited device.
The first impression is quite good: the tablet looks solid, even though it is thinner than its predecessor. The 3G model which I bought has a black plastic area near the top, which houses the HSDPA modem and the built in GPS. The back is made from aluminum, so it feels more durable than the plastic iPhone 3G/3Gs (and reminds of the original iPhone).
Also you don’t need a USIM card inserted right away to activate the 3G iPad – all one needs is a computer with iTunes.
Pros:
- All games i have run very smoothly (Galaxy On Fire 2,
- GLBenchmark results 5 to 8 times better than original iPad
- lighter than the original iPad
- two cameras for taking photos, videos and chatting
- can record smooth HD-ready (720p) videos
- can provide HDMI (1080p for still images and 720p for movies) and VGA output
There are also some cons:
- backlight bleeding in dark lighting conditions is very visible
- the oleophobic coating does not make much difference – after an hour the screen is just as dirty as any touch capable device
- the oleophobic coating makes rapid finger movement difficult, so gamers might need some getting used to
- the SIM tack is hard to remove
- there are some minor bugs in iOS (already running on 4.3.1) — for example when resetting Cellular Network Data usage you get -465794987610350000000000 bytes instead of 0 bytes.
- low quality front camera in low lighting conditions
- can only use micro SIM
