The Apple iPad 2 is official and Steve Jobs unveiled it at last, the new tablet has many new features including a dual-core A5 chip and its release will be March 11.

After all the rumours covering the cameras it is now official that the Apple iPad 2 will have front and rear facing cameras, the CPU is twice as fast as before and graphics will run 9 times faster than the original.

Apple promises 10 hours battery life and the iPad 2 price will stay the same as the current iPad starting at $499 for the lowest model, there will be a new HDMI output at a cost of $39 for the requisite dongle.

As we have mentioned before even though at the time it was speculation the iPad 2 is 33 percent thinner than the first iPad, it is only 8.8mm thin. Shipping will begin March 11 and will be released on both AT&T and Verizon. Check out Engadgets photo gallery of the new official iPad.