Yes, yes I know. The iPad 2 came out almost two months ago and I'm reviewing it now. Well I ordered mine at the end of March and it didn't arrive until April 22. I've been heavily using it for exactly one week and I'm ready to type up a very thorough review of the device. You might recall that I was once skeptical about the iPad 2. Read on to see if that opinion remains.

Design
The iPad 2 is a beautiful product. Build quality is very solid. It's about the size of a composition notebook. It's extremely thin and at a comfortable weight. Apple points out it is 0.5mm thinner than the iPhone 4 and it definitely feels that way. I'd even venture to say that it's just on the borderline of being a little too thin. When I hold something, I like it to be thick enough so that it fits perfectly in my hand. The iPad 2 still feels very good when holding it especially with the new curved sides, but I think this is pretty much the thinnest it could should get.

The home button is noticeably different from the iPad 1 and iPhone. It's a much lighter click and doesn't need as much pressure as previously. I like it a lot because it helps with multitasking. On the iPhone 4, because of the pressure needed to click the home button sometimes I would accidentally only tap it once or not tap it fast enough for the second click and so the multitasking bar would not appear. iPad 2 fixes this.

I do live in fear of dropping it though. This feeling goes away over time like it did with my iPhone 4, but my iPad costs $500. So far it does seem to be pretty durable though. I don't have a single scratch on the glass (but that's also thanks to the smart cover; read on for more on that) and I don't have a scratch on the aluminum either, though I'd be willing to bet the aluminum will be the first to get a scratch.

The aluminum border on the front of the iPad 1 has been mostly removed, but there's still a tiny part of it showing. I actually like it though because it provides a nice contrast.

The speaker is just fine. There were some worries that it might sound muffled since it's aimed more toward the back on the iPad 2 but I don't have any issues with it. All the buttons on the top and sides are perfectly accessible too. I also didn't have any problems plugging anything into the 30-pin dock connector or headphone jack.

Display
I was worried that the iPad 2 display would look mediocre in comparison to the retina display on my iPhone 4. After all, the 1024x768 9.7-inch display is only 132ppi and the iPhone 4 is at 326ppi. I was wrong. Everything is fairly sharp and I don't have any issues with the lower resolution. Most of the time you hold the iPad farther away from your eyes than you hold the iPhone anyway. Colors are bright and vivid as well. I'm almost certain I would dislike any tablet with a display smaller than 9 inches.

Speed
The iPad 2 is very responsive with absolutely no lag. Ever. Seriously, there's none. That dual-core A5 chip does wonders. Web pages load quickly, albeit not as fast as most laptops. I do get the checkerboard effect when scrolling, but only rarely. In some instances web pages load faster. Videos and games are smooth and consistent. Apps get going at a pretty good pace. I'd have to say the killer speed improvement is actually boot-up time. It's fantastic. I didn't time it, but I'd say that shiny white Apple logo only glows for about fifteen seconds until you are prompted to gracefully unlock the tablet. So speed is not an issue by any means.

Battery Life
Apple promises that the iPad 2 gets ten hour battery life. I was never an owner of the iPad 1 so I can't give any comparisons, but I can tell you that battery life is impressive. I'll tell you exactly what I do the majority of the time on my iPad. I read news, I write news, I play games (some of them graphically intense), I watch YouTube videos, I browse the web, and use other apps like Twitter. Yes, I do a little bit of everything on a daily basis. I use my iPad pretty heavily and for the past week, I haven't put it down (while at home) for more than an hour. By these standards, I get about two days of use on a single charge. If that isn't incredible, I don't know what is.

I have a 17-inch HP laptop that needs to be charged after a little over two hours and this 9.8mm thick tablet can be used regularly for two days. iOS may be much lighter than Windows 7 or Mac OS X but it still at times feels just as worthy.

Cameras
Okay so the cameras suck. I mean they really just aren't good. There's a front facing VGA camera and a rear camera that can take photos and videos at 1280x720. That's HD video recording, but it's only a .92MP image. Plus, the quality on either camera isn't very good. Inside, images and video are extremely grainy and lack detail. The quality gets better outside, but remains somewhat insufficient. There's no autofocus or tap to focus here. The only modification you can make to the image is adjust exposure according to where you tap or digital zoom, which almost always makes it look worse. It may have HD video recording, but what's the point of putting in HD video recording if the quality isn't good? It's only just a large video. It's also a marketing gimmick.

To Apple's credit, these cameras aren't really meant to take photos or video. They are really just for FaceTime. For that purpose, they are just barely adequate. It's pretty awkward holding up a tablet to take a photo anyway, so I don't plan on using either camera to do so. Still, the quality of the cameras was clearly a trade-off in order to make the iPad so thin.

There is a cycle to using Photo Booth on the iPad. It starts off as a fun novelty app, then it becomes fairly interesting, followed by fairly uninteresting, and finally just pointless. Unfortunately, this cycle is completed within the first day or two of owning your iPad.

Productivity
Is the iPad 2 a productivity device? Well, that's a yes and no. Typing seems to be an issue for some but it's not for me. Need proof? I am typing this entire review on it.

Apple has effectively set the standard for productivity apps on the iPad. iMovie and GarageBand really show off a tablet's full potential. The suite of iWork apps are actually pretty useful. I have Pages, and the set of tools given is probably more than you'd expect. AirPrint works well for me because I have a compatible printer, but overall compatibility is pretty limited. I don't have the latest Apple TV or any compatible accessories so I cannot try out AirPlay.

I do have some issues with productivity that are worth mentioning. First, having multiple tabs open in Safari is just a hassle. To switch to another tab, you have to tap the icon and tap the window you want. It may not seem like much if you are only doing light web browsing, but it's annoying as hell if you are trying to gather research in one tab and type it up in another going back and forth. The same applies to switching apps between Safari and Pages because two apps cannot be displayed side by side. All apps run full screen.

Here's the biggest issue though. Getting files on and off the iPad is so much more of a nuisance than it should be. DropBox makes it easy to get files on or to edit them, but you can't make a presentation in Keynote and put it in your DropBox from your iPad because of the lack of a file system in iOS. You can send any file from iWork to iWork.com, but it can't be edited and synced. Any other files must be synced through iTunes. The whole process is just a mess that needs to be cleaned up.

Oh and not very much is missed out on in Safari with the iPad's lack of Adobe Flash. Take that, Honeycomb.

Apps
Theres over 70,000 apps in the app store and for the most part, they are very good. The quality is just unmatched by any other OS, especially Android. My number one favorite by far is Flipboard, an app that brings all of your social networks and RSS feeds into a beautifully designed and organized magazine. I've been trying and trying to find fault with it, and I can't find a damn thing wrong. It's fantastic. My other favorites are Twitter, Pulse, Instapaper, and ABC Player. I bought Dead Space when it was on sale for only $0.99 and it's a fun game that also proves the graphics power in the iPad.

Unfortunately, there is not a single good Facebook app available and Facebook still has not released an official iPad app for unknown reasons. Apps on the iPad are also much more expensive than on the iPhone.

Speaking of the iPhone, I do have a couple iPhone apps installed on my iPad. I usually display them at 2x (pixel doubled) and there is something that really pisses me off about it. A lot of apps now are made for the iPhone 4's 960x640 resolution, yet when displayed at that resolution on the iPad, everything is noticeably pixelated. Apple is stretching the 480x320 versions of the app instead of displaying the versions compatible with iPhone's retina display.

Smart Cover
So I bought the iPad 2 Smart Cover in the gray polyurethane. There's not much to say about it. It works exactly as advertised and works well. When it's attached, it almost feels like it becomes a part of the iPad. I recommend that everyone get one.

There is one issue With the Smart Cover I want to touch on. I have noticed that the hinge has two small marks on both ends that appear to be some sort of oil from the wearing away of the metal. This becomes a problem when you fold the cover back because it leaves two smudges on the side of the iPad. They aren't scratches and can be rubbed away with your finger, but I find it to be pretty annoying to have to do so on a daily basis.

Overall
Overall, I'm very pleased with the iPad 2. Since I began using it one week ago, I haven't used my laptop for more than a couple of hours. It really can replace your computer for many tasks. There are still some uses for my laptop -- mainly for doing any heavy content creation. But make no mistake, the iPad has full potential in creating content. It's fast, sleek, and very useful in so many ways. Can it do everything a laptop can do? No. For what it does do, can it do it better than a laptop? In many cases, yes.

I'm disappointed with the cameras on it and the lack of a file system. Luckily, the latter can be fixed with a software update. And yes, notifications are obtrusive but that too can be fixed in iOS 5. A retina display would have been nice, but it's clearly not a necessity.

The iPad 2 has successfully proven itself to be a significantly capable device and certainly the best tablet on the market today. I'd buy this over a netbook any day. All the positives outweigh the very few negatives and I'm happy to say I'm going to continue using my iPad 2 on a daily basis. To answer the question I stated at the beginning of this review, I am no longer a skeptic. This thing continues to amaze me with each day that goes by.