make RTC for arduino

What is an RTC?

A real time clock is basically just like a watch - it runs on a battery and keeps time for you even when there is a power outage! Using an RTC, you can keep track of long timelines, even if you reprogram your microcontroller or disconnect it from USB or a power plug.
Most microcontrollers, including the Arduino, have a built-in timekeeper called millis() and there are also timers built into the chip that can keep track of longer time periods like minutes or days. So why would you want to have a seperate RTC chip? Well, the biggest reason is that millis() only keeps track of time since the Arduino was last powered - . That means that when the power is turned on, the millisecond timer is set back to 0. The Arduino doesn't know that it's 'Tuesday' or 'March 8th', all it can tell is 'It's been 14,000 milliseconds since I was last turned on'.
OK so what if you wanted to set the time on the Arduino? You'd have to program in the date and time and you could have it count from that point on. But if it lost power, you'd have to reset the time. Much like very cheap alarm clocks: every time they lose power they blink 12:00
While this sort of basic timekeeping is OK for some projects, some projects such as data-loggers, clocks, etc will need to have consistent timekeeping that doesn't reset when the Arduino battery dies or is reprogrammed. Thus, we include a seperate RTC! The RTC chip is a specialized chip that just keeps track of time. It can count leap-years and knows how many days are in a month, but it doesn't take care of Daylight Savings Time (because it changes from place to place)

This image shows a computer motherboard with a Real Time Clock called the DS1387 . There's a lithium battery in there which is why it's so big.

The RTC we'll be using is the DS1307 . It's low cost, easy to solder, and can run for years on a very small coin cell.

As long as it has a coin cell to run it, the DS1307 will merrily tick along for a long time, even when the Arduino loses power, or is reprogrammed.

You MUST have a coin cell installed for the RTC to work, if there is no coin cell, it will act strangely and possibly hang the Arduino so ALWAYS make SURE there's a battery installed, even if it's a dead battery.

Files

Schematic and layout files can be found at GitHub - click Download Source to get the zip!

Parts

Image	Name	Description	Part information	Qty
	IC2	Real time clock	DS1307	1
	Q1	32.768 KHz, 12.5 pF watch crystal	Generic 32.768KHz crystal	1
	R1, R2	1/4W 5% 2.2K resistor Red, Red, Red, Gold	Generic	2
	C1	0.1uF ceramic capacitor (104)	Generic	1
		5 pin male header (1x5)	Generic	1
	BATT	12mm 3V lithium coin cell	CR1220	1
	BATT'	12mm coin cell holder	Keystone 3001	1
	PCB	Circuit board	Adafruit Industries	1

Assemble!

	Prepare to assemble the kit by checking the parts list and verifying you have everything! Next, heat up your soldering iron and clear off your desk. Place the circuit board in a vise so that you can easily work on it
	Begin by soldering a small bump onto the negative pad of the battery: this will make better contact!
	place the two 2.2K resistors, and the ceramic capacitor. They are symmetric so no need to worry about direction. Then place the crystal (also symmetric), the battery holder (goes on so that the battery can slip in the side) and the RTC chip. The RTC chip must be placed so that the notch/dot on the end match the silkscreen. Look at the photo on the left, the notch is pointing down. Double check this before soldering in the chip because its quite hard to undo!
	To keep the battery holder from falling out, you may want to 'tack' solder it from the top Then flip over the board and solder all the pins.
	Clip the leads of the resistors, crystal and capacitor short.
	If you'd like to use the header to plug the breakout board into something, place the header in a breadboard, long side down and place the board so that the short pins stick thru the pads. Solder them in place.
	Insert the battery so that the flat + side is UP. The battery will last for many years, 5 or more, so no need to ever remove or replace it. You MUST have a coin cell installed for the RTC to work, if there is no coin cell, it will act strangly and possibly hang the Arduino so ALWAYS make SURE there's a battery installed, even if its a dead battery.

Arduino library

Any 5V microcontroller with I2C built-in can easily use the DS1307. We will demonstrate how to use it with an Arduino since it is a popular microcontroller platform.
For the RTC library, we'll be using a fork of JeeLab's excellent RTC library RTClib - a library for getting and setting time from a DS1307 (originally written by JeeLab, our version is slightly different so please only use ours to make sure its compatible!) - download the .zip by clicking on Download Source (top right) and rename the uncompressed folder RTClib Then install it in your Arduino directory in a folder called RTClib

Wiring it up!

There are only 5 pins: 5V GND SCL SDA SQW.

• 5V is used to power to the RTC chip when you want to query it for the time. If there is no 5V signal, the chip goes to sleep using the coin cell for backup.
• GND is common ground and is required
• SCL is the i2c clock pin - its required to talk to the RTC
• SDA is the i2c data pin - its required to talk to the RTC
• SQW is the optional square-wave output you can get from the RTC if you have configured it to do so. Most people don't need or use this pin

If you set analog pin 3 (digital 17) to an OUTPUT and HIGH and analog pin 2 (digital 16) to an OUTPUT and LOW you can power the RTC directly from the pins!

First RTC test

The first thing we'll demonstrate is a test sketch that will read the time from the RTC once a second. We'll also show what happens if you remove the battery and replace it since that causes the RTC to halt. So to start, remove the battery from the holder while the Arduino is not powered or plugged into USB. Wait 3 seconds and then replace the battery. This resets the RTC chip. Now load up the following sketch (which is also found in Examples→RTClib→ds1307) and upload it to your Arduino with the datalogger shield on!

// Date and time functions using a DS1307 RTC connected via I2C and Wire lib
 
#include 
#include "RTClib.h"
 
RTC_DS1307 RTC;
 
void setup () {
    Serial.begin(57600);
    Wire.begin();
    RTC.begin();
 
  if (! RTC.isrunning()) {
    Serial.println("RTC is NOT running!");
    // following line sets the RTC to the date & time this sketch was compiled
    //RTC.adjust(DateTime(__DATE__, __TIME__));
  }
 
}
 
void loop () {
    DateTime now = RTC.now();
 
    Serial.print(now.year(), DEC);
    Serial.print('/');
    Serial.print(now.month(), DEC);
    Serial.print('/');
    Serial.print(now.day(), DEC);
    Serial.print(' ');
    Serial.print(now.hour(), DEC);
    Serial.print(':');
    Serial.print(now.minute(), DEC);
    Serial.print(':');
    Serial.print(now.second(), DEC);
    Serial.println();
 
    Serial.print(" since 1970 = ");
    Serial.print(now.unixtime());
    Serial.print("s = ");
    Serial.print(now.unixtime() / 86400L);
    Serial.println("d");
 
    // calculate a date which is 7 days and 30 seconds into the future
    DateTime future (now.unixtime() + 7 * 86400L + 30);
 
    Serial.print(" now + 7d + 30s: ");
    Serial.print(future.year(), DEC);
    Serial.print('/');
    Serial.print(future.month(), DEC);
    Serial.print('/');
    Serial.print(future.day(), DEC);
    Serial.print(' ');
    Serial.print(future.hour(), DEC);
    Serial.print(':');
    Serial.print(future.minute(), DEC);
    Serial.print(':');
    Serial.print(future.second(), DEC);
    Serial.println();
 
    Serial.println();
    delay(3000);
}

Now run the Serial terminaland make sure the baud rate is set correctly at 57600
bpsyou should see the following:
Whenever the RTC chip loses all power (including the backup battery) it will report the time as 0:0:0 and it won't count seconds (its stopped). Whenever you set the time, this will kickstart the clock ticking. So basically the upshot here is that you should never ever remove the battery once you've set the time. You shouldn't have to and the battery holder is very snug so unless the board is crushed, the battery wont 'fall out'

Setting the time

With the same sketch loaded, uncomment the line that starts with RTC.adjust like so:

// following line sets the RTC to the date & time this sketch was compiled
  RTC.adjust(DateTime(__DATE__, __TIME__));
 

Thisline is very cute, what it does is take the Date and Time according the computer you're using (right when you compile the code) and uses that to program the RTC. If your computer time is not set right you should fix that first. Then you must press the Upload button to compile and then immediately upload. If you compile and then upload later, the clock will be off by that amount of time.
Then open up the Serial monitor window to show that the time has been set
From now on, you wont have to ever set the time again: the battery will last 5 or more years

Reading the time

Now that the RTC is merrily ticking away, we'll want to query it for the time. Lets look at the sketch again to see how this is done

 
void loop () {
    DateTime now = RTC.now();
 
    Serial.print(now.year(), DEC);
    Serial.print('/');
    Serial.print(now.month(), DEC);
    Serial.print('/');
    Serial.print(now.day(), DEC);
    Serial.print(' ');
    Serial.print(now.hour(), DEC);
    Serial.print(':');
    Serial.print(now.minute(), DEC);
    Serial.print(':');
    Serial.print(now.second(), DEC);
    Serial.println();
 

There's pretty much only one way to get the time using the RTClib, which is to call now(), a function that returns a DateTime object that describes the year, month, day, hour, minute and second when you called now().
There are some RTC libraries that instead have you call something like RTC.year() and RTC.hour() to get the current year and hour. However, there's one problem where if you happen to ask for the minute right at 3:14:59 just before the next minute rolls over, and then the second right after the minute rolls over (so at 3:15:00) you'll see the time as 3:14:00 which is a minute off. If you did it the other way around you could get 3:15:59 - so one minute off in the other direction.
Because this is not an especially unlikely occurrence - particularly if you're querying the time pretty often - we take a 'snapshot' of the time from the RTC all at once and then we can pull it apart into day() or second() as seen above. Its a tiny bit more effort but we think its worth it to avoid mistakes!
We can also get a 'timestamp' out of the DateTime object by calling unixtime which counts the number of seconds (not counting leapseconds) since midnight, January 1st 1970

Serial.print(" since 1970 = ");
    Serial.print(now.unixtime());
    Serial.print("s = ");
    Serial.print(now.unixtime() / 86400L);
    Serial.println("d");
 

Since there are 60*60*24 = 86400 seconds in a day, we can easily count days since then as well. This might be useful when you want to keep track of how much time has passed since the last query, making some math a lot easier (like checking if its been 5 minutes later, just see if unixtime() has increased by 300, you dont have to worry about hour changes)

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Review: Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1v (P7100)

Review: Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1v (P7100)

Published on Jul 25th, 2011, 1 Comment

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1v (also known as the P7100) is a piece of hardware with an unfortunate story behind it. That little extra “v” means that this Vodafone exclusive differs from the Galaxy Tab 10.1 that will start appearing on South African shelves in the next month or two. Will you be worse off with the 10.1v than the retooled, sleeker 10.1?
The long, drawn out story is that Samsung had already begun the production run for their just announced 10.1 when the iPad 2 was unveiled (click here to see our review of the iPad 2). Samsung was so impressed by the form factor of the new iPad, that a decision was made to retool the 10.1 to make it the thinnest tablet yet. Some deals were made, and it was decided that the “old” 10.1 was to be a Vodafone exclusive, under a new name – the 10.1v (hey, they had to do something with the stock). Now that the sleeker, retooled 10.1 has surfaced, Vodafone has decided that they’ll offer both the 10.1v and the 10.1 (at least until 10.1v stock runs out). So, have you been shortchanged if you’ve already gotten yourself a Tab 10.1v? Will it be a bad idea to pick up a Tab 10.1v if the price comes down? The answer might surprise you.
Physical Features
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1v measures 246.2 x 170.4 x 10.99 mm (2.39 mm thicker than the retooled 10.1) – this sounds bigger than it looks. At 589 grams, it’s much lighter than expected. This isn’t a bad thing, though. It’s easy to pick up and comfortable to hold for extended periods of time.
The solid sheet of Gorilla Glass covering the 10-inch display, front camera, and proximity sensor is set into a grey metal rim, with the power/lock button, headphone jack, and one of the pair of stereo speakers on the left side of the device. The right side holds the SIM slot and the other speaker. The bottom is home to Samsung’s proprietary dock connector in the center, and a volume rocker and microphone can be found along the top of the device. The buttons are pleasantly responsive, but you won’t find yourself accidentally locking the device or adjusting the volume. That being said, the position of the volume rocker isn’t optimal. I’d have preferred it on the right hand side of the device – within easy reach.
The back is a hard, textured black plastic that looks (and feels) very durable. There’s a slightly recessed oval in the center of the back that holds a silver disc that sports the Samsung logo. Apart from being a nice aesthetic touch, this recession also gives you a more secure grip. The main camera and its accompanying LED flash also lives on the back of the device.
Both the form factor and the materials used to construct the Galaxy Tab 10.1 are pleasant enough, but it does feel a little cheap compared to something as solid as the Motorola XOOM.
Display
The Tab’s 10.1-inch TFT Capacitive display, running at a resolution of 1280×800, is more than adequate. It doesn’t bring any technological breakthroughs to the table, but it’s definitely on par with what’s out there at the moment.
Brightness is good, and colour reproduction is quite faithful. The responsiveness of the (multi-point capable) touch sensor sometimes felt like it couldn’t keep up, but this may be a software issue. There was also, unfortunately, a little backlight bleed visible with dark colours.
Performance And Battery Life
The Dual-core 1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 proccessor, paired with a GeForce GPU (all held together by NVidia’s Tegra 2 chipset) is mostly the same configuration found in all of the other Honeycomb tablets out there at the moment. In-app performance is generally very good, with almost no lag present. Games run with relatively high frame rates. The general Honeycomb interface, however, does feel a little laggy and slightly unresponsive at times. This may be down to the fact that this tablet is still running Android 3.0. All in all, though, the Galaxy Tab 10.1v’s performance is nothing to scoff at.
The 10.1v is powered by a massive 6860mAh Lithium-polymer battery. It takes ages to charge, but the inverse is also true. To say that this battery is impressive would be an understatement. With moderate use, getting more than a week’s worth of battery life was easy.
Camera
Here’s where the 10.1v wipes the floor with the retooled 10.1 – in order to shave just over 2mm off the device’s thickness, the camera module had to be replaced with a 3 Megapixel one. The Galaxy Tab 10.1v comes with a 8 Megapixel auto-focus camera that is pretty damn good. Pictures are sharp, colours are vivid, and it performs better than most cellphone cameras in low light. It can also record Full HD (1080p) video.
The front camera (intended for video calling), at 2 Megapixels (fixed-focus), is also much better than what you can find on the majority of other devices out there.
Extras
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1v has usual set of hardware that assists in one way or the other: aGPS, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth, Gyroscope, Accelerometer, Digital Compass, Proximity and Light sensors. All present, and, as always, all working as expected. GPS locked quickly and accurately. WiFi was solid. Light sensors have gotten so good that you’re not even aware that they’re doing their thing.
The 10.1v also sports a SIM slot. Put in a data SIM, and suddenly you’re no longer dependent on Wi-Fi being present. Depending on signal strength, the 10.1v makes good use of 3G cell networks, being capable of full HSPA+.
The one thing that the 10.1v does not have is an SD slot. So, you get 16GB of internal storage, and that’s it.
Software
Google’s version of Android for tablets, Honeycomb, has been out for a while now. Most Android tablets are already running 3.1 – some flavors of the XOOM have been blessed with 3.2 – and these new versions have brought quite a few notable features to the table: performance improvements, scrollable task list, resizable widgets and much, much more.
The Galaxy Tab 10.1v has none of these features as it’s still running Android 3.0, with no set date for the promised 3.1 update. If you’ve worked with the later versions of Honeycomb, going back to 3.0 is frustrating. If you’re new to it, then you won’t mind as much. However, as mentioned before, there is noticeable lag in the Honeycomb UI, which will probably be addressed in the update. One such aspect of the UI that was outright frustrating to use at times was the browser. The difference in responsiveness and rendering speed of the browser in 3.0 compared to the one in 3.1 is like night and day. Let’s hope the 3.1 update arrives sooner rather than later.
Another thing you won’t see on the 10.1v is Samsung’s TouchWiz UI customizations. Depending on who you ask this is either a blessing or a curse, but there’s nothing quite like an untainted version of Android. The question is, though, will the updates for the 10.1v be priority, and if not, will they at least be timely?
Conclusion
There are many that will tell you that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1v is an older, lesser device than the retooled 10.1 – well, they’ll be right about the “older” part, but “lesser”? The internals are pretty much identical. You’ve got a choice. You can either live with a device that’s a smidgen over 2mm thicker, but with an excellent camera, or you can have one of the thinnest tablets available that takes mediocre pictures. Sure, there’s the risk you’re taking of waiting for official firmware updates, but a quick visit to the XDA Developer forum already shows that the 10.1v is quite a hackable device with a lot of potential.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1v is a Honeycomb tablet that definitely shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. It may not be as pretty as its sibling, but it’s just as capable.

HTC Flyer

Updated: HTC Tablet specs, release date and more

Mobile computing News

By Dan Grabham and Gary Marshall

Can HTC replicate its phone success with the Flyer?

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At Mobile World Congress HTC announced the HTC Flyer tablet.
But the specs didn't blow us away - it's a 7-inch single-core device running an older version of Android instead of one of the dual-core larger options running Android 3.0.
So what do we know about the new device?
The HTC Flyer doesn't have Android 3.0
HTC plumped for the earlier Gingerbread version of Android (2.3/2.4) rather than the Android 3.0 version a lot of the other tablets are using. It seems Honeycomb will arrive on the tablet imminently though.
The HTC Flyer processor is 1.5GHz
The HTC Flyer packs a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor - surprising amidst the slew of dual core tablets being released at the moment. However, it is clocked high at 1.5GHz. There's also 1GB of RAM.
The HTC Flyer has a 7-inch screen
Like the BlackBerry PlayBook and Acer Iconia A100, the HTC Flyer plumps for a 1024 x 600 7-inch display surrounded by an aluminium unibody. That's the same resolution as the PlayBook too.
A 5MP camera with flash resides on the back of the device, and we're treated to a 1.3MP offering on the front for video calling – however voice calling is not supported despite a 3G connection.
The HTC Flyer has a stylus
Yep, you heard that right. Although during our hands on: HTC Flyer review we weren't that impressed by the pressure sensitivity which "doesn't really seem to work that well when trying to annotate text – although the range of brushes and options were accurate and useful."
Every time an application can make use of the new stylus, a small icon pops up in the bottom right hand side of the screen.
We weren't blown away by the video quality on the device we were having the demonstration with, but with the settings unable to be altered at this early stage we couldn't get the brightness to an acceptable level anyway – whether this will be a decent PMP substitute remains to be seen.

The HTC Flyer has HTC Sense
It was rumoured that the skin that HTC uses on its Android phones - HTC Sense - may get a redesign and a new name for the HTC Tablet. HTC has trademarked HTC Sensation alongside a list of devices which include mobile phones, wireless devices and portable computers.
But the Flyer will actually run HTC Sense atop Android Gingerbread. There's a bunch of new 3D widgets, while HTC says it has done a lot of work on the interface - but the only visible difference is that apps are now much bigger of course (as well as working in landscape).
The dual-pane windows for things like video, contacts and mail seem to work well.
The Notifications bar now also gives you quick access to the Settings, as on the HTC Desire S.
The HTC Flyer battery life is said to be good
The charger is a slightly altered microUSB offering, designed to facilitate power to the 4000mAh battery.

The HTC Flyer is thin and light
The HTC Flyer is really light at just 415g, and with a thickness of just 13.7mm. It will fit nicely in a bag, though is 7-inch too small for you, especially if you've used an iPad? The device also has a thick iPad-like bezel.
The HTC Flyer has the standard HTC buttons
There are controls for the Menu, Back, Search and Home functions which glow when in use. Otherwise there's just a volume switch.
When is the HTC Flyer UK release date?
According to DigiTimes, Apple Daily says that a JP Morgan analyst says that Google is messing around with its Android support. Motorola is Google's priority for 3.0, LG will be priority for 3.5 and HTC follows on, which means the HTC Tablet won't ship before the second quarter of 2011.
We're betting on a March or April HTC Flyer UK release date.

The HTC Flyer price may be $790
One DigiTimes report took a stab at the HTC Tablet price, and it predicts that without subsidy it'll be $789.75.
On February 21 the HTC Flyer hit German pre-order, with pricing set at €669.
The tablet was listed by the company itself; so if we use a straight currency conversion that gives the HTC Flyer UK pricing of around £563 – not at all bad for the tablet, in our view.

The HTC Tablet price might be zero
Download Squad says the HTC Flyer will launch on Verizon in the US with a price tag of zero depending on the tariff you choose. Similar deals are likely here: we've already seen Three, T-Mobile and Orange offer subsidised iPads.

iPad 2 review

Updated: Apple's new tablet is the best of its kind, but is it really good enough?

 Just under one year ago, Apple shocked the computing world with a 9.7-inch touchscreen tablet that few truly expected.

Some called the original Apple iPad a large-format iPhone. Others berated the name and made jokes that were not remotely funny.

The early reviews were marginal at best – we handed the device a solid four stars. Technical folks decried the lack of Adobe Flash and the missing cameras.

    * Follow our tablets channel: @TR_Tablets

Now, 60,000 apps later (according to Apple, who counts every conceivable option) and just a few weeks after the first real Android 3.0 tablet contender hit the streets (Motorola Xoom), the iPad 2 has sauntered onto the playing field.

Some expected pure gold: a tablet that runs as fast as a laptop and weighs less than a newspaper
Yet, the reality with the iPad 2 is that Apple has taken an iterative approach. In many ways, the iPad 2 is a crowd pleaser because it does not rock the boat.
At 241mm tall, 186mm wide, and 8.6mm thick, the iPad 2 is just a hair smaller than the original iPad and it's thinner than the iPhone 4. It has a curved edge that makes it look a bit more 'space age' and, surprisingly, easier to grasp because you can curve your fingers more easily around the bezel.



The most dramatic change is the weight. At 680 grams, the iPad 2 is 80g lighter than the first iPad. That is about the same weight as a juicy red apple (curious, eh?). Yet, in using the device, it feels strangely lighter than it really is.
Apple has made a second-gen iPad that feels lighter and more nimble, and its newfound mobility means it has lost the annoying heft of the original model.
Meanwhile, the Motorola Xoom, at 730 grams, now feels like the tank that it is. (More about that later, because we do prefer the speedy processor on the Xoom that handles 3D maps and games.)


One other observation about the design: compared to the iPhone 4, the iPad 2 feels a bit more like a plastic plate (the back is actually metal) as though it really needs a protective case. Part of the reason for this 'cheap plastic' impression is that the device is one-third thinner than the original and 15 per cent lighter.
Overall, the design is a stunner – it's brilliant. The aesthetics are much improved, although not everything about the iPad 2 is so equally impressive.

iPad 2 UK pricing starts at £399 for the 16GB Wi-Fi only model, and jumps up to £659 for the 64GB Wi-Fi + 3G edition.
Other models are priced as follows: 32GB Wi-Fi only at £479, 64GB Wi-Fi only at £559, 16GB Wi-Fi + 3G at £499 and 32GB Wi-Fi + 3G at £579.

Features

On paper, the iPad 2 is 'twice as fast' as the original iPad, running the brand-new dual core A5 CPU built by ARM.
In practice, it might not be that obvious that the processor is faster. Many apps, such as the Safari browser and the iPod media app, start about as fast as the original iPad. But as we'll see, apps like iMovie and GarageBand do run much faster.

We tested the 64GB version W-Fi-only iPad 2 (our iPad 2 3G review is on the way!). With the Xoom, there is only one model with Wi-Fi and 3G.
The iPad 2's 64GB of storage is twice that of the Motorola Xoom, although Motorola plans to update the device to support the built-in microSD slot.
Curiously, the iPad 2 screen is the same size and resolution as the original model, running at just 1024 x 768 pixels.

The Motorola Xoom, at 1280 x 800 pixels, is notably superior -- especially for viewing videos, flicking through high-def photos, and using the Android 3.0 interface itself. That's one of the early findings with the iPad 2, that the screen itself is almost indiscernible from that on the iPad.
That said, the iPad 2 's screen still has a better viewing angle than the Xoom or Samsung Galaxy Tab 7-inch.

 

Most of the power on the iPad 2 comes from the A5 processor, and our early tests show that this dual-core chip does provide some new-found speed, especially in apps like iMovie. (On the original iPad, iMovie tends to stutter a bit.) Interestingly, the iPad 2 starts up much faster than the Motorola Xoom

In fact, we started the iPad and browsed to a few websites before the Xoom even got to its home screen.
In another test, we loaded up the iPod media player on both the iPad and the iPad 2 with the same music and movie files.
Here, we saw another noticeable speed difference – the iPad 2 finishes loading about a second faster. Those speed gains meant clicking on Arcade Fire's latest album to play music just a hair faster.
Several other specs, which we'll cover in their proper section, are also new or improved:
The two cameras, one for photos and one for video chats; the faster graphics engine, which will made games more bearable; the HDMI-out capability at HD resolution that also lets you mirror whatever you see on the screen. Apple now offers a 30-pin to HDMI cable that could make movie night easier.

Even with the faster processor and better graphics engine, the iPad 2 still lasts about ten hours – or roughly the same as the Motorola Xoom. Apple has also added a new gyroscope similar to the one on the iPhone 4.

 This chip, in conjunction with the existing accelerometer, will help make the iPad 2 more sensitive to motion, especially in games but also when you change the orientation.

Interface and performance

The new iOS 4.3 release adds several improvements and makes the iPad 2 easier to use (the update is also available for the original iPad).
Finally, you can decide whether the switch on the side locks the screen orientation or mutes the audio. This was a 'gotcha' on a previous release for those who were accustomed to using the switch to lock rotation, because the iPad tends to switch at inopportune times.
Performance of iPad 2 vs Motorola Xoom and original iPad...







However, the software setting is not as important now: the iPad 2 actually does a better job judging orientation than the first iPad thanks to the new gyroscope.
With the iPad, you sometimes had to convince the screen to rotate by rocking the device forward or back (almost like a fan), but that issue seems to have gone away.
We'll test the 3G version of the iPad 2 in the coming weeks, but iOS 4.3 does not let you use Personal Hotspot to share the carrier connection like the iPhone 4 does even though they both use the same iOS 4.3 release.
This is disappointing because it's something tablet users might want to do, and it's supported on the Dell Streak and the Motorola Xoom.
In a side-by-side comparison between the iPad and iPad 2, we tested several apps for speed including the iPod media player, Safari browser, the iTunes app, and the Maps app and found there was little difference. However, the iMovie and GarageBand app worked much faster on iPad 2 and without any delays.

Interface and performance

The new iOS 4.3 release adds several improvements and makes the iPad 2 easier to use (the update is also available for the original iPad).
Finally, you can decide whether the switch on the side locks the screen orientation or mutes the audio. This was a 'gotcha' on a previous release for those who were accustomed to using the switch to lock rotation, because the iPad tends to switch at inopportune times.

However, the software setting is not as important now: the iPad 2 actually does a better job judging orientation than the first iPad thanks to the new gyroscope.
With the iPad, you sometimes had to convince the screen to rotate by rocking the device forward or back (almost like a fan), but that issue seems to have gone away.
We'll test the 3G version of the iPad 2 in the coming weeks, but iOS 4.3 does not let you use Personal Hotspot to share the carrier connection like the iPhone 4 does even though they both use the same iOS 4.3 release.
This is disappointing because it's something tablet users might want to do, and it's supported on the Dell Streak and the Motorola Xoom.
In a side-by-side comparison between the iPad and iPad 2, we tested several apps for speed including the iPod media player, Safari browser, the iTunes app, and the Maps app and found there was little difference. However, the iMovie and GarageBand app worked much faster on iPad 2 and without any delays.

This has to do with how the A5 dual-core processor works: when we added several tracks in GarageBand using the original iPad, a message would appear occasionally about "optimizing performance…" but when we switched to the iPad 2 – recording the exact same acoustic guitar parts and vocal tracks – the app ran smooth.
One issue with the iPad 2 overall is that it's an iterative release - the interface is starting to look a bit dated, and we ended up preferring the more colorful, animated, and technically-minded Android 3.0 OS on the Motorola Xoom.
For example, on the iPad 2, you can view open apps by double-tapping the Home button, but this is a bit clunky. On the Xoom, you can press an icon to see a thumbnail of all open apps.
The iPad 2 also still does not support widgets. On the Xoom, you can add weather panels, e-mail preview screens, and mini-audio players that make it easier to control the device.
The iPad 2 is restricted to showing just the standard icon rows. As on the iPhone, you can drag and hold icons, then drop them into groups/folders.

Internet and browsing

Apple has touted the Safari browser on iPad 2 and it's improved JavaScript Nitro engine, saying performance is twice as fast. In our tests, that claim is a stretch.
In fact, the same websites appeared much faster on the Motorola Xoom browser. In some cases, testing sister sites GamesRadar.com and PhotoRadar.com, the iPad 2 took up to a minute to open the sites on a 2Mbps broadband connection.

However, we had much better luck with sites that use HTML5. One site, Sarahsilverphotography.ca, loaded quickly and formatted images correctly, as did many other websites we tested at html5gallery.com.
In most cases, web apps like iPaint did not work because of the touchscreen interface, however. Sites that make heavy use of Adobe Flash, such as Presonus.com, failed to load and did not substitute static images by sensing the iPad 2's lack of Flash support.


Predictably, Flash video sites only loaded in parts and did not play videos. Google sites like Maps and Google Videos did load quickly and were formatted correctly. Maps.google.com also found our GPS location quickly.
Of course, the iPad 2 uses the Internet in many ways other than through the Safari browser.
We tested Tweetdeck which runs at about the same speed as on the original iPad.
We also tested LogMeIn Ignition, which lets you connect for a remote session to your desktop PC. Once again the app ran at about the same speed as it does the original iPad without any dramatic speed improvements, especially for watching videos on Hulu.com (which tended to chug along) on the PC's Chrome browser.
Overall, Internet browsing was definitely not a reason to upgrade to the iPad 2: it runs at about the same speed as the original iPad. With the Xoom, you get tabbed browsing and the promise of Adobe Flash support eventually.

Media capabilities

Apple wins hands-down for media availability compared to other tablets.
You can rent or buy just about any TV show or Hollywood movie, find albums from just about any indie artist on the planet, and set the iPad 2 to automatically download audio and video podcasts without any trouble.
In fact, this is the one stronghold that Apple has over other tablets, because they have licensing arrangements for so much content. You can't even rent a movie on the Xoom, at least not until Blockbuster releases their app in the US.

Yet, the iPad 2 does not really improve on media viewing itself. The screen resolution ast 1024 x 768 just can't match the quality of the Xoom.
That means, for the high-def videos we tested, including the movie Miracle at St. Anna and several home movies shot using a Canon 1D that can record 1080p video, the iPad 2 still leaves room for improvement.

Coupled with the inadequate built-in camera, the video capabilities on the iPad 2 are still not up to par – although the iTunes Store ecosystem certainly is.
In a side-by-side comparison with the Xoom, our test movies in particular looked more colorful, played smoother, and looked sharper on the Xoom than the iPad 2. Brightness level between the two tablets was about the same, however.
The news is not all bad, though. Apple has included several new features with the iOS 4.3 release which the iPad 2 uses to full effect.

Home Sharing is one of the new features. Essentially, it means you can stream music, movies, and TV shows from your computer over Wi-Fi. The catch of course is that you still need to obtain the content – you can't stream media directly from the Internet unless you use a third-party app like Netflix.
In our tests, several episodes of Modern Family streamed smoothly from a MacBook Pro.
One of the most impressive features on the original iPad involved streaming content form the device to an HD television. You had to use an Apple TV as an intermediary device, and this is still true, but the iOS 4.3 adds the ability to stream videos you have recorded yourself to the Apple TV from the camera roll.
You can now also play iTunes preview clips. A new Apple Digital AV Adapter lets you connect directly to an HDTV using an HDMI cable and mirror whatever is on your iPad 2.

Video compatibility is hit or miss. We had great success with "Apple sanctioned" video formats like H.264 MPEG-4, and found that, predictably, formats like Windows Media did not work.
The popular open-source HD format MKV did not work in iTunes or when we tried e-mailing a 3MB test file to the iPad 2.
You'll need a third part app like VLC to run those files for the time being.
Curiously, we had trouble loading video files into the new iMovie app. Apple seems to restrict this app to use videos you have recorded using the iPad 2 or at least recorded with an iOS device.
However, we did find a workaround: we couldn't load QuickTime files through iTunes but when we e-mailed them to the iPad 2, we could then save the clips locally and they appeared in the iMovie video bin.

As everyone on the planet reported when the iPad 2 was announced, the rear-facing and front-facing cameras on the iPad 2 are a handy addition, but not that useful for any real photography or for high-def video chats.
It's unfortunate, because if the quality had been higher, the iPad 2 could have become an excellent chat tool.

First, for photography, the rear-facing camera records video at 960x720 but, in our tests, looked grainy, washed out, and almost unusable.
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Worse, the 0.7-megapixel camera is almost laughably bad. That's problematic for another reason: holding the iPad 2 (or any tablet) in landscape or portrait mode and trying to hold it steady for a photograph is not an easy process.
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Most test images looked slightly blurry.
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The front-facing VGA-resolution camera is not any better. You can capture 0.3-megapixel still images, but it's nearly impossible to use it for anything other than grainy-looking self-portraits.
In a FaceTime video chat with a friend across town, the video quality looked remarkably similar to the iPhone 4, but not in a good way.

Amazingly, Apple does not offer any extra control over photos: setting a custom white balance, or selecting a scene. It's just plain vanilla shots.
Other multimedia
The iMovie and GarageBand apps provide some exceptional multimedia capabilities, though. In many ways, they add a whole new level of usefulness to the iPad form factor.

That said, the iMovie app is fairly limited: you can chop in video clips and add a quick dissolve or spotlight effect, but you can't add titles or other transitions.
GarageBand is a marvel, though. The app includes countless pianos, guitars, drums, and other instruments. Most importantly, these instruments, particularly the piano and drums, respond to soft touches and hard finger presses accurately.
And the iPad 2 also has an excellent built-in microphone: our test tracks recording an acoustic guitar sounded richer than we expected. Once again, the A5 processor helped make both apps enjoyable to use and handled processing tasks without any hiccups.

Apps and maps

App availability on the iPad 2 is an interesting story. For starters, there are about 60,000 apps available, according to Apple.
Many of these are re-purposed iPhone apps and some are just newspaper apps that feed content a different way.

In fact, there are really only a handful of notable apps that seem designed specifically for the iPad 2 as a device in its own right.
We've covered iMovie and GarageBand. Real Racing 2 HD is another one that benefits from the iPad 2's new gyroscope and better handheld gaming mechanics, providing fluid control over your vehicle.
As a side note, the game Need for Speed Shift actually controls better on the Motorola Atrix in terms of how you rotate the phone to steer.

Dead Space HD, a horror shooter, and Infinity Blade, a role-playing game with sword-fighting, both look colorful and run smoothly on the A5 processor and benefit from the iPad 2's powerful graphics engine.
That said, the games Fruit Ninja HD and Angry Birds HD all played a bit faster on the Xoom than they did on the iPad 2. In Fruit Ninja HD, the Xoom kept pace with our rapid fire finger slices, while the iPad 2 sometimes chugged very slightly.

There's also some good and bad news about the Apple store: we've learned to like the Android system where you can load an APK file to your device just by copying it over or even e-mailing the file to yourself. The Apple store is ideal for those who want one obvious way to obtain (and, of course, purchase) apps.
We used to think there were a couple of glaring omissions on the iPad. For example, Google seemed to reserve their best apps, like Sky Map, for the Android OS. There's now a Star Walk app that does the same thing.
Also, some apps, like Google Talk, are conspicuously missing from the Apple Store, but there are any number of third-party clients for iOS that provide (in some cases) a better portal into that service.
Maps on iPad 2

Mapping on the iPad 2 works about the same as it does on the original iPad.
The iPad 2 does not appear to have a faster or more sensitive GPS chip, although some mapping functions, such as zooming in on a map, worked faster on the iPad 2 than they did on the Xoom.
Performance of Maps on iPad 2 vs Motorola Xoom

However, there isn't a 3D rendered side-angle view on the iPad 2 that is on the Xoom, although that feature only works in major cities.
One noticeable difference: the Xoom provides voice navigation for directions. You can still get navigation using the Maps app on the iPad 2, but not guided by voice.
It's also worth noting that there are still only a few dozen Android 3.0 apps for the Xoom. In terms of smartphone apps running in a small window: both the iPad 2 and the Xoom have that covered, even if it really doesn't make much sense.

Battery life - how long does it last?

As expected, the iPad 2 battery life is about ten hours, although that figure depends greatly on how you use the device.
If you watch three movies in a row, the iPad 2 might not last much longer than six hours. In our tests, the iPad 2 lasted 9.5 hours from a fully charged state performing typical functions such as checking e-mail occasionally, browsing the web etc.

We didn't notice any speed-up in USB charging over the original iPad, which is a pity.
This 'all day' battery life is just about ideal for a tablet because it means you can use the iPad 2 on a whim: checking sports scores, playing a few songs, checking back later in the day to watch a TV show.
One issue we had with the iPad 2 though is that, the new curved bezel design does not work well with docking stations and alarm clocks like the iHome gear.

The 30-pin connector on the iHome does not fit quite right into the slot on the iPad 2. That's not just a problem for music playback, but the docks are the easiest way to charge the device. We think Apple might have purposefully decided to reinvigorate the iPad 2 dock market.
Battery saving features
We prefer some of the battery saving features on the Xoom. For example, you can adjust brightness level in just two clicks: once to access settings, another to change brightness. On the iPad, it is more like three clicks: double-tap on the Home button, slide left to access the brightness controls, then adjust for battery savings.
On the Xoom, you can also adjust the screen timeout interval as low as 15 seconds. Overall, the Xoom and iPad 2 last about the same amount of time.

Apple iPad 2: Verdict

The lighter design, A5 processor, cameras, gyroscope, and other enhancements increase the iPad 2's value over the iPad... at the same price.
But the original iPad is now £100 cheaper and Apple has had a full year to innovate further without really delivering much.
We really wanted to see some jaw-dropping new features. In actual real-world speed tests, the most common apps don't perform any faster... yet. Maybe that will change when developers start to optimise apps for the iPad 2's hardware. But for now, only a few apps truly benefit.
So where does that leave the iPad 2?
We liked:
When pressed into a corner, we have to admit that the new design is attractive enough to make anyone want to upgrade. It's simply gorgeous, and retains the solid, premium feel of the original iPad.
The lighter styling means more mobility, and even less reliance on a laptop. Steve Jobs talks about a post-PC world – we're not there yet, but the writing is most certainly on the wall.
The speed improvements for GarageBand, iMovie, and several games are noteworthy. As with Android 3.0 tablets like the Xoom, the iPad 2's best days are certainly ahead of it.
Will developers start to produce games and apps that make the most of the A5 chip inside the iPad 2? We'd like to think the answer is yes – but those same developers will not want to forget about about the 15 million people out there who already have a first generation iPad – so the extent to which games and apps will be optimised is unclear.
Will the limitations of the first iPad hold the iPad 2 back? Probably. How much, we'll have to wait and see. But this is almost certainly one of the reasons behind Apple's reluctance to really innovate with the iPad 2.
We disliked:
One thing's for sure - the iPad 2 is still not a great multi-tasker. As far as that particular feature goes, Android 3.0 has iOS 4 beaten hands-down. To even say that iOS supports multitasking is stretching it if you ask us.
The lack of widgets is also a drawback, and we can't see Apple introducing them to iOS any time soon.
The cameras are also very poor – and that's an area Apple could easily improve upon, but chose not to.
And that leads us into the real negative feature of iPad 2 - simply its lack of innovation. This is a refined iPad, with a few extra hardware features and a more powerful CPU.
Verdict:
For all the negatives, for now we think the iPad 2 is still the best tablet around.
It is much better for consuming media, has more compelling apps (especially for the larger tablet size), has a better app store ecosystem, and is light and useable.
Maybe the Xoom or some other Android 3.0 tablet can keep up…or maybe not.