Battery Life

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.