Speed testing the iPad 2

 Speed testing the iPad 2

Faster, sleeker and more fun than before... we speed test the iPad 2

The iPad 2 looks amazingly responsive in Apple's product demos, and the company's claims for its battery life are also impressive. But how does it perform in the real world? We've had a go on the iPad in our labs and we're happy to report that the battery actually performed well beyond Apple's claims..

The iPad 2 uses a new Apple-designed processor called the A5, which is making its first appearance on the scene. Apple is generally cagey about tech specs for products like the iPhone and iPad, but by all accounts, the A5 is a dual-core version of the 1 GHz

 

Get real Games like Real Racing 2 HD take full power of the iPad 2's improved functionality

A4 chip that powers the iPhone 4 and the original iPad. The iPad 2 also has 512MB of RAM—twice that of the original iPad—and a 200MHz bus speed, likewise twice that of the original.

Because the A5 is a dual-core processor, Apple claims the iPad 2 can run at speeds up to double that of the original iPad. As with any dual-core processor, the key about "up to double" is that software must be optimized to take advantage of multiple processor cores, or that speed goes to waste. This is the first dual-core processor to appear on an iOS device, and it'll be interesting to see under what circumstances the A5 is noticeably faster than the A4, and when it's not.

But processor speed isn't the only part of the system that determines how it performs. Graphics performance has become a major component in determining how Fast a computing device feels. And Apple says that the graphics performance on the iPad 2 is as much as nine times faster than on the original iPad.

So does the iPad 2 measure up to Apple's claims? Absolutely, though it's hard to determine whether the dual-core processor or the improved graphics performance deserve the credit. (Maybe the question is moot.) From the moment I started using the iPad 2 with familiar apps from my original iPad, I could tell that the system was faster. I thought scrolling through tweets in Twitterrific on my iPad was smooth as can be ... until I scrolled through the tweet list on the iPad 2. Everything felt smoother, and items loaded faster.

Credit where it's due

Part of the speed boost, especially when I started to test performance in Safari, probably needs to be credited to iOS 4.3, which ships with the iPad 2 and includes a dramatic improvement to Safari'sjavaScript engine. When I installed the golden master version of iOS 4.3 on an original IPad, performance improved as well. But even when both devices were running iOS 4.3, the iPad 2 was 1.6 times as fast as the original in running the SunSpider JavaScript test, and 1.9 times as Fast as an iPhone 4 running the iOS 4.3 golden master.

In short, the iPad 2 is the fastest iOS device ever made, by a long shot. And it's not just an academic distinction: you can sense the speed when you use it, because everything's faster and smoother than it was on the original iPad.

Despite the boosts in processing power, Apple claims that the iPad 2 has the same ten-hour battery life as the original model. In nearly a week of use, I never saw a reason to disbelieve the claims. The iPad's all-day battery life, perhaps its killer feature, remains intact.


 iPad and iPhone speed, graphics & battery life tests

Best results are in bold. Results are id seconds and lowest result is test. Apart from framerate which uses the GL&enchmark 2.0.3 app on the Egypt setting to measure how many frames per second are displayed (higher is better), and battery lile, which is measured in minutes and highest result is belt. All devices were tested using iOS4.3 (apart from the iPhone 4 with iOS 4.2 (or reference). Sunspider is a WebKit JavaScript performance test with results in seconds. Web Page test measured number of seconds to load www.nytimes.com in its entirety.