iPad 2: Not Quite the Magazine Experience

Engadget published a first hands-on about the iPad 2 and what piqued my interest was this:

“The design feels great in your hands. Sleek, super thin — much nicer to hold than the previous version. Definitely has more of a magazine than book feel. Everything is tight and solid. It is pretty amazing how thin they’ve gotten the device.”

I’m an avid magazine reader and if the new iPad 2 has more of a magazine than book feel like they said, I’d be very happy with the iPad 2. However, I’m still reluctant because the magazine experience I think is still better with the print copy than a digital copy on an iPad. I will have to spend more time using an iPad 2 to read magazines, but from my experiences so far with the original iPad (which has the same form factor anyway), I would rather stick to traditional print magazines. The biggest issue is that the iPad 2 is basically only half the size of an open magazine. You can’t look at the iPad as a 2-page spread, but rather as a single page. On an iPad it’s hard to read an article and quickly glance at the pictures like you can with a print magazine because you have to zoom in to read the article. You almost need to have 2 iPads with a spine. And I don’t see that happening with future generations of the iPad or with other tablets in general. Steve Jobs joked how 2011 is the Year of the Copycats. And he’s right. What a shame. Unfortunately, Microsoft cancelled their Courier concept which I think could’ve been a great competitor to the iPad. It could’ve been a great alternative as it would meet the needs of different users. But like everyone else, they’re instead probably going to try to copy Apple’s iPad if they eventually try to join the tablet wars.

The cancelled Microsoft Courier Tablet concept. Picture courtesy of Engadget:
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My Corrado: Pounds Per Horsepower Comparison

The new turbo and the talk of the HP numbers got me thinking about the gains I’m about to get in the performance of my Corrado. Although buying the turbo kit was pretty much an impulse buy, I have been thinking about how cars today are getting faster while my Corrado is just sitting still. The horsepower numbers of cars straight from the factory today are steadily increasing. I mean cars are getting bigger and heavier due to more safety restrictions, but the increase in horsepower is increasing faster than the cars are getting heavier. Thus cars are getting faster every day and my Corrado is comparatively getting slower and slower. I’ve been thinking for awhile now that I need to do something to keep pace. Hence, the turbo kit.

I believe that a good indicator of how well I can keep pace with the newer cars is in the weight-to-power ratio. How much weight does 1 HP have to put into motion? So I decided for fun to put together a chart as you see below. I’ve gathered most of my data from Road & Track’s Road Test Summary. For some of the older cars I used various other sources. I’ve gathered the Curb Weight (the manufacturer’s published weight of the car with all fluids minus the driver and passengers), Horsepower, 0-60 times, and calculated the Pounds Per HP Ratio (Curb Weight/Horsepower). I’ve included the torque and F/R/AWD drivetrain info for completeness’ sake. The dark green rows highlight my Corrado’s numbers (stock and theoretical numbers for the turbo kit). The light green rows are cars I’ve owned, and the yellow rows are some cars my friends own. I tried to put together competitors to the Corrado and also other more expensive sports cars for fun. Here are the results:

So my high school experiment shows that there is a direct correlation between Pounds Per HP and speed. The less weight 1 HP has to pull, the faster the car. Of course there are other factors involved, like the drivetrain which affects how well the cars launch and the gearing of each car. AWD cars generally launch better than RWD and RWD better than FWD. But as a reference these numbers tell alot.

What’s the conclusion? Well look at where my stock Corrado sits on the list. Near the bottom. And with the turbo kit it’s theoretically near the top against other stock opponents. That’s even thinking conservatively since the turbo kit is supposed to get 280 to 300 WHEEL horse power. So I would say that the turbo kit is WORTH THE DOUGH!