Research In Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook is “a seven-inch touch-screen tablet ($500, $600, and $700 for the 16-, 32- and 64-gigabyte models [WiFi-only]),” David Pogue reports for The New York Times.
“The iPad, of course, is a 10-incher, but seven has its virtues. It’s much easier to hold with one hand, for example. In principle, you ought to be able to slip the PlayBook into the breast pocket of a jacket — but incredibly, the PlayBook is about half an inch too wide,” Pogue reports. “Whoever muffed that design spec should be barred from the launch party… Its software is based on an operating system called QNX, which Research In Motion, the BlackBerry’s maker, bought for its industrial stability. (‘It runs nuclear power plants,’ says a product manager without a trace of current-events irony).”
Pogue reports, “With a special HDMI cable (not included), you can hook it up to a TV or projector, which is great for PowerPoint presentations. (Apparently they still do those in corporations.) The iPad does that, but the TV image is identical to the iPad’s screen image. The PlayBook, however, can show two different things.”
MacDailyNews Take: Not true. The can “show two different things” (dual display), too:
Pogue reports, “At the moment, BlackBerry Bridge is the only way to do e-mail, calendar, address book and BlackBerry Messenger on the PlayBook. The PlayBook does not have e-mail, calendar or address book apps of its own. You read that right. R.I.M. has just shipped a BlackBerry product that cannot do e-mail. It must be skating season in hell. (R.I.M. says that those missing apps will come this summer.)”
MacDailyNews Take: Another pretend iPad rushed to market.
Pogue reports, “And that’s just the beginning. For now, the PlayBook’s motto might be, ‘There’s no app for that.’ No existing apps run on this all-new operating system, not even BlackBerry phone apps. (R.I.M. says an emulator that will run BlackBerry apps will come later this year.) So the company has decided to start from scratch with an all-new app store for the PlayBook. The company says that it has 3,000 submissions already, in part because it offered a free PlayBook to anyone who’d write an app. But they won’t be revealed until next week.”
“In its current half-baked form, it seems almost silly to try to assess [the PlayBook], let alone buy it,” Pogue reports. “Remember, the primary competition is an iPad — the same price, but much thinner, much bigger screen [PlayBook’s screen is only 45% as large as iPad’s] and a library of 300,000 apps. In that light, does it make sense to buy a fledgling tablet with no built-in e-mail or calendar, no cellular connection, no videochat, Skype, no Notes app, no GPS app, no videochat, no Pandora radio and no Angry Birds? You should also know that even now, only days before the PlayBook goes on sale April 19, the software is buggy and still undergoing feverish daily revision. And the all-important BlackBerry Bridge feature is still in beta testing. It’s missing important features, like the ability to view e-mail file attachments or click a link in an e-mail.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: See previous Take; add “half-assed” before “pretend.”
Note also that the tiny-screened PlayBook’s battery doesn’t cut it either. The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg reports in his PlayBook review, “Battery life also fell short in my tests. With the screen brightness at about 75% and Wi-Fi on, I played a movie I had transferred from a computer over and over until the juice ran out. The PlayBook lasted a bit over five hours, well short of the company’s claim of eight to 10 hours for mixed use. In mixed use, and on a second test of watching video with Wi-Fi off, I did better, over six hours, but well short of the 10 hours on the iPad 2.” Full review here.
Related articles:
Gartner: Apple iOS to dominate tablet market through 2015, owning over 50% of market for next three years – April 11, 2011
Apple’s revolutionary iPad causes collateral damage to would-be rivals – April 7, 2011
Gassée: ‘The inmates have taken over the asylum’ at BlackBerry-maker RIM – March 28, 2011
Loss of faith in RIM deepens as tiny-screened ‘PlayBook’ tweener debut nears – March 25, 2011
RIM shares drop as marketing chief leaves company on eve of supposed PlayBook launch – March 4, 2011
Developer: RIM Playbook’s development process is terribly designed; I quit – February 26, 2011
Analyst: RIM’s expensive, flawed PlayBook tablet will be poorly received – February 1, 2011
RIM PlayBook will ship without email, calendar; not a fully standalone device, requires BlackBerry – January 17, 2011
RIM half-CEO Jim Balsillie: ‘PlayBook redefines what a tablet should do’ – December 17, 2010
RIM is in full-blown panic mode.
Not to mention a purported 5 hour battery life…
Imagine how short that battery life would be if they ever got Flash support.
Why does this not surprise me?
Sharp relief.
iPads have been banned from the company I work for…
The PlayBook is ALREADY considered a Corporate standard, and they haven’t even tried it! IT is scared of everything with an Apple logo on it! Pathetic…
You have my deepest condolences.
Take up a collection and buy an iPad 2 for the CEO’s spouse. After that, it’s only a matter of time.
Aah, I love a smart post! Well said , and great whiskey too!
eeeewwww a blend? But a brilliant, truly inspired concept. Well done FG.
Lou, you gotta find a different company. With leadership decisions like that, the current one is doomed.
Jesus, all that huffing and puffing and they squeeze this out of their sphincters?
Haha, I’ve had days like that……but then I don’t try to sell my “output” on the open market…
Self induced blood bath.
R- Really? an
I – Incomplete
M – Mess,
Is that a surprise to anyone….?
Only one co-CEO must have baked his half, the other co-CEO forgot to turn on his oven.
so wait it can’t do email, calender or an address book. and it doesn’t have any apps. So that leaves the question what can the playbook actually do? Who is going to use it?
Frisbee Golf?.
Nah, it’s too thick to be used as a frisbee.
It makes corporate IT departments happy.
Think of buying an electronic device in terms of NASA sending men to the moon.
With the iPad, you’ll get all the way there, land and return to Earth.
With the Playbook, you’ll perhaps breach the atmosphere unless the OS crashes, you won’t be able to communicate with Mission Control (though they’re working on that and may have it up and running over the next several days) and assuming you reach the moon, you won’t have any tools (apps) to do any science with once you get there.
When I drop around $600 on something, I want the return trip — not the finger cross.
But NASA might well buy it anyway, because “It’s blackberry! Secure! Enterprise-friendly! We already know it!”
that’s what RIM is counting on. FUD about Apple and familiarity/trust on the part of IT people about RIM.
Getting to the moon is someone else’s problem.
I am sure it does copy and paste, so you can copy something from the web and paste it to, wait a minute, mail no, notes no, ummm….
RIM (Research in Mediocrity)
RIM (Rife in Merde)
No e-mail, calendar, address book or apps? I simply CAN’T wait to get my $500 calculator/paperweight with HDMI output! I can’t wait to carry that around in my amply-sized breast pocket. WAIT… 1/2″ too big for that? SUPER!! Now what am I gonna do with the suit I bought a suit instead of a PlayBook case!
No e-mail, calendar, address book or apps? I simply CAN’T wait to get my $500 calculator/paperweight with HDMI output! I can’t wait to carry that around in my amply-sized breast pocket. WAIT… 1/2″ too big for that? SUPER!! Now what am I gonna do with the suit I bought a suit instead of a PlayBook case! R.I.M. can now officially change their name to R.I.P.
Pogue has been one of my favorite tech writers, but he sometimes bends over backwards to prove to his critics that he’s not an “Apple fanboy.” He was actually being too kind in his review- saying the Playbook had some features the iPad and Zoom “could only dream about.” I thought only living brains could dream.
To think the bastards said that Apple’s screen monopoly caused the Playbook one month delay and, in reality, the damn thing will not really be ready for prime time until the fall.
A 7-inch screen, 45% of the screen real estate of the iPad is NOT A TABLET. Talk about a ‘big iPod touch”. There needs to be a better definition about what is what in this new post-PC space. If a device only really has phone apps and apps made just for it are really no different than phone apps, then it is NOT A TABLET.
Yeah if you’re gonna call a 7 in device a tablet then the iPod Touch is a tablet too and the iPhone for that matter.
I love Canada, our friendly neighbors to the North. That being said they should stick to hockey and maple syrup and leave the tech to us. It’s like apple trying to go into the goalie pad business.
I live in Canada, and I have to agree. Canada is rather good at mediocrity.
Canada can’t do tech? Tell that to the television broadcast industry! Almost every piece of equipment my company has bought recently is Canadian (Miranda, Evertz, Ross, Harris).
I guess you have never heard of the Avro Arrow ? It could fly circles around some modern day military fighters.
Eat your ignorant words.
Actually, it couldn’t. It was an interceptor, meaning specialized to fly in a straight line. So, not particularly good for flying in circles.
I love ‘competition’ like that..(sarcasm)
Its all according to plan man! just think about it… RIM releases this now and then in 6 months when they finally deliver all the missing apps they can claim a 100% sales increase and look like rock stars on a spreadsheet that hides eroding market presence 😉
MDN: Seriously with the video game? I’d think most intelligent folk would understand when they say the iPad dosen’t support dual displays they mean natively within the OS, like the ability to open any app and put it on the second display. Small point either way but come on.
Actually the iPad 2 does support dual display with any App. Just plug in the HDMI out and it displays a copy of anything on the iPad screen to anything on the second screen.
Per Pogue, a correction is being made to the mirroring statement.
Flummoxed
RIM once again proves that Canada’s best export remains “Strange Brew” and Webkinz.
lol, you lot are the worst fanboys ever. reading these comments had me in stitches, seriously.
wtf?