Fail Updating iOS 5.1.1.

You should look at the following considerations before upgrading.

Considerations:

1. Is it a 3G unit? Battery drains faster because of the "in your fingertips" kind of user interface. With 3G connectivity on in iOS5.1 vs.4.2, the battery mileage will decrease faster than those of Wi-Fi units. There's something with the network modem firmware which may be the cause of accelerated battery drain as well
2. Are you having preference of things like "notification centre", lock screen changes, iCloud etc over battery performance? The difference in battery performance differs from user to user. It's the way iOS5 is built that lowers battery performance.
3. How often are you close to a wall socket OR how willing are you in using an iPad while its bound by a cord?
4. Possible performance degradation - read around the iPad forums. It may happen.
5. There's no turning back.
6. Are you still adamant on upgrading?

The question is, would you go for acessibility and convenience to an extent that battery performance/hardware performance is compensated? If you have already given it a thought, great.

You need at least Windows XP to download the latest iTunes which is capable of upgrading your iPad to iOS 5. Followed by connecting your iPad to the computer. Then hit check for updates after navigating into the device menu.

The link in your discussion should also aid you in the consideration.

iPad: Which iOS 5 features does my iPad support?

iPhone: Which iOS 5 software features does my iPhone support?

Also before upgrading especially for devices running proprietary software, don't just conduct the upgrade for novelty. If your current version works, leave it there. There are why some version archiving websites still exist, for a good reason when it comes to software.

Bottom line is the nature of iOS updates such that it is run in an arbitary approach (not sure if I used the right word) because rollbacks cannot be triggered. Rollbacks serve a purpose of reverting your device to its last healthy state, iOS doesn't do that.

There are people out there with bricked devices from upgrades bricked the device unintentionally/intentionally because the device doesn't revert back to its last healthy state when it is experiencing an error preventing the update from proceeding. My personal advice is don't peform an upgrade unless you really have to.

That's the last thing I'll look at - at least for me.

No problem. The update should come to you as an option actually. It isn't mandatory. 🙂