Apple iPad 2 review

The best tablet of the year or an unnecessary consumer bauble? We take an in-depth look at the 16GB WiFi iPad 2 to see whether you should deploy it in your business.

IT Pro Verdict

Despite some operating system niggles, the otherwise slick iOS combined with elegantly designed hardware leads to some real, tangible benefits for the end user - such as excellent battery life. All this makes the iPad 2 the standard by which all other tablets will be judged. If you've already deployed the original iPad there's not enough in the new model, with the possible exception of the dual core processor, to make it worth upgrading. Although it's currently the best tablet you can get, if you're deploying tablets for the first time and can wait, it'll be worth seeing how well it compares against the numerous upcoming competing tablets from rival manufacturers.

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This is a shame since the iPad can be used to edit video using the optional 3 iMovie app available from the App Store. Choosing which of your stored video clips to use is easy - simply skim your finger over the clip to quickly preview its content, then tap the clip to bring up a pair of selection handles which allow you to choose which bits of the clip you want. A 'Use' icon appears simply tap it and the clip appears on your editing timeline. Transitions are automatically added between clips as you add them, you can record voiceovers, add titles, background music and photos.

Your choice of title and transition styles are limited to whichever theme you choose for your editing project though. There are also limited audio editing controls you can mute a clip's soundtrack, but can't accomplish more complex tasks such as adjusting the amount of ducking or the fading in and out at the beginning and end of each clip.

It's support for importing clips from more capable cameras is very restricted though, immediately limiting its usefulness as a substitute for editing video on a laptop. We had no trouble using the optional USB adapter to import footage from an iPhone 4 and a Flip Mino HD, which both record to H.264 at a similar resolution to the iPad's cameras, but iMovie wouldn't recognise footage shot on a Fujifilm Finepix S200EXR stills camera which records in M-JPEG files with an AVI wrapper. Sadly, you can't exchange projects between the iPad and Mac versions of iMovie either.

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