Jenneth Orantia turned her back on a lucrative career in law to pursue her unhealthy obsession with consumer technology. She’s known for having at least half a dozen of the latest gadgets on her person at a time, and once won a bottle of Dom Perignon for typing 78WPM on a Pocket PC with a stylus.
review As the pimply-faced new kid on the block, the BlackBerry PlayBook has its work cut out for it. It’s entering a market that’s dominated by the Apple iPad and drowning in Android tablets, and it runs an operating system that has so far seen little support from the major developers. It’s the most impressive bit of hardware that RIM has delivered to date, but does it have what it takes to be more than just a blip on the iPad’s radar?
The BlackBerry PlayBook is available in Australia through Telstra, Optus and Vodafone.
Design
These days, it seems like a 10-inch tablet is released every other week, complete with the same Android Honeycomb operating system, dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, and 720p video recording. It’s like going to a party and watching guests wearing nearly identical outfits walk through the doorway one by one.
RIM is trying to offer something different with the PlayBook. Its 7″ 1024×600 display splits the difference between a smartphone screen and that of the rest of the tablet herd, and it leaves a lasting impression of quality thanks to the slim profile, soft-touch finish, and sturdy construction. At 425g, the PlayBook is heavy for its size (the 7” Samsung Galaxy Tab weighs only 380g), but it’s the good kind of heavy that makes it feel like a premium product.
Features
Many of the iPad’s limitations are non-issues on the PlayBook. There are big features like Adobe Flash 10.3 support, 1080p video recording and playback, built-in mini-HDMI and full multi-tasking, and finer details like drag-and-drop file transfers, a standard micro-USB connector and the ability to download files through the web browser. There’s no 3G option – yet – but it’s available with the same 16GB, 32GB and 64GB storage options as the iPad.
The PlayBook runs the QNX operating system that RIM acquired last year, and it’s a far better fit for touchscreens than the BlackBerry OS ever was. With no hardware buttons on the PlayBook’s front, navigating through the system is completely touch-based, with a nifty multi-tasking widget on the homescreen that lets you flick through running apps like cards. There’s a small learning curve, but it feels natural once you master all the gestures. It’s a beautiful, elegant OS that (mostly) offers a better tablet experience than iOS and Android put together.
Most of the standard apps you’d expect in a tablet are on-board, like a web browser, media player, document-editing suite, Facebook and YouTube, but there’s also the glaring omission of no native email or personal information management apps. You can add these to the PlayBook by pairing it with a BlackBerry OS 6 smartphone, but it’s clumsy workaround that locks out the vast majority of non-BlackBerry users.
Performance
As bone-headed as the PlayBook’s lack of email is, RIM gets it right when it comes to performance. The PlayBook has a dual-core 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 processor and 1GB of RAM, and this combo positively flies when paired with the QNX operating system. Menu animations are silky smooth, apps load quickly, and heavy multi-tasking doesn’t seem to phase it at all.
The PlayBook doesn’t just support the latest version of Flash, it actually runs it as well as any laptop, with embedded videos streaming smoothly as soon as you tap on the play button. Page loads are speedy too, with minimal lag when you pan around the screen and use multi-touch gestures for zooming in and out. Not that you’ll need to do a lot of zooming; the 1024×600 resolution is just large enough to display most websites in their native formatting.
A vibrant, contrasty display and powerful stereo speakers are only half of the PlayBook’s video-playing talents. The PlayBook is the only mobile device we’ve encountered that can play Full HD videos without flinching – a trick that many laptops have trouble with. There was an occasional hiccup when playing our 1080p WMV copy of Alice in Wonderland, where the picture would pause for a second, but it was mainly smooth sailing for every video we threw at it.
RIM claims the PlayBook is good for 10 hours of continual use, and we consistently got at least that much when playing videos on loop with Wi-Fi on. The battery is non-replaceable, but it uses a standard microUSB charger and can recharge over a USB connection.
Really, the only performance-related complaint we have is that QNX is still a little unstable. The browser in particular spits the dummy occasionally and crashes repeatedly until you restart the PlayBook. But RIM seems committed to fixing bugs and adding new features – in the month we’ve had the PlayBook in the office, RIM has issued three over-the-air software updates.
Conclusion
Every tablet with a new OS needs to start somewhere, and the newness of QNX naturally means there aren’t as many apps available. But it’s not the barren wasteland we were expecting. There are approximately 3,000 PlayBook apps currently available through BlackBerry App World, and while this is well short of the 100,000 apps that are optimised for the iPad, it’s significantly more than the ‘low hundreds’ of apps that have been developed for Android Honeycomb.
But the numbers don’t tell the full story. While 3,000 apps sounds impressive for a new platform, hardly any of the apps we consider ‘staples’ have been developed for the PlayBook, such as Twitter, Evernote, Amazon Kindle, DropBox and Skype. Even Angry Birds is missing in action. Also, while the iPad and Android tablets can run apps from their smartphone counterparts, the same can’t be said for the PlayBook.
RIM has promised updates this year that will add native email and PIM apps, as well as a unique Android “app player” that that will enable the PlayBook to run Android 2.3 apps released through BlackBerry App World in a virtual run-time environment. If RIM had offered these features from the start, we could’ve been looking at a homerun for the PlayBook. As it stands, however, it’s simply a tablet with a lot of potential, and unfortunately for RIM, potential doesn’t sell nearly as well as an Apple logo. Using the PlayBook is like driving a swanky sportscar that can only travel a couple of blocks. Impressive, yes, but too limited to be useful.
The BlackBerry PlayBook is available in Australia through Telstra, Optus and Vodafone.
Image credit: Research in Motion
Very nice, honest, and fair review. Thank you!
I have a playbook and I am satisfied with it’s performance over the “other” tablets. One thing is for sure, they have upped the fit and finish ante for Apple and it’s Ipad 2, even if the PlayBook is not as app rich. The speaker placement and audio quality is better than the ipad, imho.
People are buying tablets for another way to be entertained/distracted and in that arena, Ipad is the conqueror, but portability and no-extra-data-charges with blackberry bridge, the PB is a win for me. I am glad not to have to buy another data plan.
I wonder what Apple, BB and the rest are gonna do when we eventually we will run out of money and stop buying these tablets and over-hyped phones.?
“One thing is for sure, they have upped the fit and finish ante for Apple and it’s iPad 2”
I agree — it’s a lovely device to handle; I preferred it to the iPad. As to when we will stop buying tablets and over-hyped phones … I don’t think there is an end in sight! ;)
the economy will force us consumers from buying toys like the ipad. the world is not going to keep lending us money so we can waste it on un-useful things like the ipad. and itoys in general. apple has suceeded only because of the blind consumerism of the western world. soon it will end.
Playbook is for serious business ipad is a toy check this article the ipad is being rejected by businesses thew world over. Even governments are adopting playbooks and rejecting ipads.
Russian govt. has categorically banned ipads from use in govt. departments.
Usa and australian govts. have cleared playbook for use.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-26/apple-ipads-shunned-by-japanese-salarymen-hanging-on-to-laptops.html
Wasn’t Steve Jobs behind the whole distorted reality thing when it comes down to Flash as being a “Security Issue”? How many certifications does Playbook have in Government compared to Apple? 2 I think now… Whoever believes that blind Idiot Jobs is definitely headed for a losing streak!
there are many things that steve jobs said which are not true. he claimed all phones have dropped call problems with antenna (when the i phone 4 issue came up) – false. Us consumers beleved it or chose to ignore it. Next hd said ipad is the post pc device – false, majority of business users are rejecting ipads in favor of laptops.
Inexcusable of all he said the playbook is dead on arrival, inspite of the press believing mr.jobs and writing bad reviews, the playbook is slowly but surely gaining momentum.
It will not be long before consumers punish apple for these lies.
I love my Playbook and am much happier with it than I was my IPad. The IPad was a neat product when it first came to market, but RIM has clearly set the bar higher with the Playbook. I wish there were more high end apps available for it and I suspect that we’ll see more and more in the days ahead. Outside of that, it’s a beautiful device. I love the propoganda campaign against RIM though…some analysts were saying that they wouldn’t sell 250,000 units…then RIM announced double that in 6 weeks of sales alone and then those same analysts continued selling the disappointing sales angle even though the Playbook already appears to be the #2 selling tablet in the world. What does the media have against RIM anyway??
I m using the Android Player now. Other than being a little buggy (as it’s a beta release), and a bit of a system wh*re, I like it. Playbook is one of the finest tablets I have used so far, as with any piece of tech, they all have their strengths and weaknesses.
After about a year using an iPad, and then a three month break, I tried the Playbook exclusively for a few weeks. Whilst agree that as a piece of hardware it’s great quality, I did find the playbook very frustrating.
For example, the 7″ size is too wide to thumb type, but renders a keyboard too narrow to type with more fingers. Added to that, it’s too narrow to sit on your lap.
Secondly, after fighting with the Microsoft Bing maps app whilst travelling on holidays – I reverted to my wife’s iPhone. Usability of the Bing maps app was terrible; with lack lustre GPS speed & accuracy. I also tried a nav app from app world, but it also was very low quality; a few bucks I’ll never get back.
So, yes, generally great hardware – but as an app platform, quite useless.
JP
When will BlackBerry release the email and calender apps for the Playbook???
A valid question.
I will most likely purchase the next generation playbook
It blows any device (droid or pad) out of the water in terms of UI design and being a proper tablet.
I have the 64GB PlayBook and love it. I’m not an App man and am pretty content with email, bbm and web browsing.
That said, I am frustrated by the fact that I can’t get a stylus to work properly through my screen protector. I would love to be able to take hand written notes. I have been practicing with Scroodle using my finger, but it just doesn’t cut it.
I have just bought my wife the iPad 16GB WIFI (no 3G). She is a newspaper and magazine nut and many publishing houses have done deals with Apple to post their stuff to the iPad. Not so with the PlayBook.
Whereas the Playbook bridges to the BB phone or tethers to any smartphone, the iPad only talks to the iPhone. This is just one area in which Apple plays god.
One can achieve the desired results by Jail-Breaking the iPad, but then one blows the warranty. Apple sees all via iTunes.
That’s just one reason I hate Apple.
The Playbook rules as a tablet – no question. We just need the android apps to give life to it. But RIM KEEPS SILENT ON THE RELEASE DATE AND THIS REALLY PISSES ME OFF.
I am not sure if it is available yet in Australia, but in Canada, we now have an app called Press Reader (http://www.pressreader.com/blackberry.html) that as newspapers from all over the world that one can download and read – you pay of course, either a monthly subscription or a price per issue (it’s 99 cents per newspaper regardless of device you will use to access your newspaper).
As for magazines, keep your eyes out for Zinio Digital Magazines to release their Playbook native app in the near future – email and posts from the company are pointing to within the next two months (Sept with Oct being more likely). As with the Ipad version of the app, you can pretty much be able to subscribe to almost any magazine on the planet and read it digitally.
I share your frustration that RIM’s silence is annoying but your concerns about newspapers/magazines should be alleviated in the near future.
I am not sure if it is available yet in Australia, but in Canada, we now have an app called Press Reader (http://www.pressreader.com/blackberry.html) that as newspapers from all over the world that one can download and read – you pay of course, either a monthly subscription or a price per issue (it’s 99 cents per newspaper regardless of device you will use to access your newspaper).
As for magazines, keep your eyes out for Zinio Digital Magazines to release their Playbook native app in the near future – email and posts from the company are pointing to within the next two months (Sept with Oct being more likely). As with the Ipad version of the app, you can pretty much be able to subscribe to almost any magazine on the planet and read it digitally.
I share your frustration that RIM’s silence is annoying but your concerns about newspapers/magazines should be alleviated in the near future.
@Darlaten
Thanks for the response. For what its worth, I’m in South Africa, not Australia. But that’s a by-the-way.
I’ll keep my eyes open for the Zinio Digital Magazines app.
Hi guys,
check out my favorite rss reader for blackberry playbook http://getwebreader.com/playbook-app-store
You will love it!
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