Camera on the iPad 2 is a World’s First, but in a Bad Way

When the iPad 2 was announced a week ago, many people were undoubtedly excited that front and rear-facing cameras were added to the device. However, rather than endow the iPad with a rear-camera equal or superior to the iPhone 4’s, the geniuses at Apple decided to add a pretty lame one, giving it the (dis)honor of being the first “camera” to have a sensor resolution lower than the display resolution.

While the iPhone 4 packs a pretty sweet 5-megapixel sensor that allows it to suffice as a compact camera for many users, the iPad 2 was only given a paltry .7-megapixel one. This means it shoots 960×720 images while displaying them on a 1024×768 LCD screen, making it suitable for video chatting but horrible as a still camera.