You're, well, frugal. You'll save $100 by buying a $399 iPad 2 instead of the baseline new iPad. That Ben Franklin can buy apps, music, movies, and then some; or you can sock the extra bucks away for the next version of iPad, which is likely to arrive in 2013.

You might expect apps to look much better on the new iPad than they do on the iPad 2. But in most instances they don't. If you're viewing an app that hasn't been optimized for the new iPad's high-resolution Retina display, your experience may range from acceptable to unsatisfying.

So far, few of the 200,000-plus iPad apps have been optimized for the new iPad. And Apple doesn't make finding these apps easy; you just have to hunt for ones that brag about being redesigned for the new tablet. It may be months before most app developers catch up with the new iPad's hardware capabilities. So that's a reason to buy an iPad 2 and save some cash, right?

Not so fast. When developers do update their apps, the revised versions will have higher-resolution images and more-demanding code. The images will eat away at your iPad 2's limited storage, and the apps will feel more sluggish running on the iPad 2's older processor. Buying the new iPad today means you'll be less likely to feel that your year-old tablet is obsolete 12 months from now.