Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
My wife had the original and wanted to upgrade to version 2 because she she needed the 3g for work.
Impressions so far:
1) V2 is lighter and easier to hold for long periods of time
2) Battery life is about the same . V2 may be a little better
3) V2 is faster at rendering web pages, etc.
4) Overall the V2 iPad is faster but not that much for the types of things we use it for
 
My wife had the original and wanted to upgrade to version 2 because she she needed the 3g for work.
Impressions so far:
1) V2 is lighter and easier to hold for long periods of time
2) Battery life is about the same . V2 may be a little better
3) V2 is faster at rendering web pages, etc.
4) Overall the V2 iPad is faster but not that much for the types of things we use it for

I agree,
the main things for me are that it is MUCH easier to hold and the performance, though not very useful for me now, will come in handy when iOS 5 comes out.
Also, I'm selling my 64gb original and getting a 16gb new one for less than $50 more so it's worth that I think
 
Spent three days with the iPad 2 and definitely found the screen was brighter and, in my case, had a colder colour temperature.

I ended up keeping my first-gen iPad in the end for a few reasons:

1. No backlight bleed. I love watching movies on the iPad at night and all three iPad 2 units that I had (the result of swaps) had very bad backlight bleeding.

2. I prefer the design over the new iPad. I don't have a very detailed rational but I just like the rounded back, speaker placement, and aethestic.

3. I have always believed that, in most cases, Apple tends to over-engineer first generation devices (big exception was Mac Air).
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.