The iPad has had many threats in the recent past and while only some of them came close to dethroning it, the BlackBerry boys are adamant about emerging victorious. We got our hands dirty with the PlayBook and here’s the lowdown
For American football fans, a “playbook” is the team’s sacred scroll with details of all tactics and strategy while for Barney from the popular sitcom How I met your mother the term refers to his treasured compilation of ways to seduce women who should know better.
But for geeks worldwide, it’s one of the most awaited gadgets of the year - Research in Motion’s attempt to take on the iPad with a BlackBerry tablet.
Technoholik got a hands-on preview of the device at the BlackBerry World convention in Orlando, Florida where the company announced some significant upgrades to the prototypes that were largely panned by the US tech media.
The PlayBook is soon going to be officially available in India where the iPad 2 is already in stores and devices running the “made for tablet” Honeycomb version of Android are set to launch. Is it worth saving up for?
Well, we’ve only had a very limited time, so with that caveat, here’s the verdict:
Good: Web browsing
Adobe, the makers of Flash have worked closely with RIM on the PlayBook and boy, does it show. Rendering of pages with Flash elements and even entire sites built with the popular software is far superior to what we’ve seen on Android tablets.
The iPad of course doesn’t do Flash, making the PlayBook which comes with the 10.1 version of Flash Player, the best tablet for desktop-like web browsing.
Good: Multitasking
It was stunning to see the built-in Need for Speed game running at full tilt while the camera recorded video and downloads continued in the Podcast app.
What’s more you can see all these things happen simultaneously in small windows as you scroll through the currently running programs/apps with a flick of the screen.
The QNX operating system seems to be doing a fantastic job of getting the best out of the dual core 1 GHz processor and the 1GB of RAM.
Good: Multimedia
With full 1080p HD recording from both the 3MP front facing camera and 5MP rear facing one, it’s in a league of its own. A pair of external stereo speakers, 1080p output using a micro HDMI port and beautiful video playback make it very un-BlackBerry like in the media department.
Good: Multimedia
With full 1080p HD recording from both the 3MP front facing camera and 5MP rear facing one, it’s in a league of its own. A pair of external stereo speakers, 1080p output using a micro HDMI port and beautiful video playback make it very un-BlackBerry like in the media department.
Bad: Native Pushmail missing
The device, till now had no standalone email, calendar or contacts client (though webmail could be accessed through apps/browser) which could be accessed without a BlackBerry handset tethered to the tablet. RIM announced an update which would add these features in the near future but it will deter non-BlackBerry phone users till they see it for real.
Bad: App ecosystem limited
While QNX is being touted as an “enterprise grade OS” which runs everything from power plants to submarines, developers will be hard pressed to find time for yet another platform. Announcing the first tablet-optimised Facebook app and a new video chat app did little to convince us that the platform was worth betting on for the long term.
Bad: No external storage
Android tablets these days are coming out not only with SD card slots, but with full fledged USB support, both of which are missing in the PlayBook
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