It’s sort of the idealised 7-inch tablet, so dialled in it might be generic if it wasn’t so cleanly executed. As thin as an iPhone 4, the corners are rounded, but not too rounded. The back is a rubber-y soft touch, but not too rubber-y. The button-free glossy black bezel? It’s actually a blank touch surface for gestures, like the Palm Pre. A 3MP front camera stares out of the top.
For being a beta build of the OS that’s not totally optimised, it runs pretty smoothly. Apps open and expand, shrink and close, swoosh in and out as you swish between them without any stuttering. Swiping from the top of the screen brings up the app’s menu. From the left or right, switch to the next open application. And from the bottom, it brings up the app switcher, where open apps can be flicked away (kinda like Palm webOS). Web pages loaded with Flash actually run. It’s legit impressive.
The question is: Who, besides BlackBerry users, is going to want to buy it? The core email and calendar apps are completely tethered to a BlackBerry. Without your BlackBerry, there is no native email or calendar app – just access through the (admittedly good) web browser. But that’s gonna turn off a lot of people. And we didn’t get a chance to see what the new App World looks like, or any of the future apps that could make it a truly killer tablet – or break it. This form factor is totally going to live and die by the apps, by the that things you can do with it.
RIM’s smartly giving developers a lot of way into the PlayBook – Adobe AIR, HTML5/web apps (which they call WebWorks), a native SDK (only for special developers), and they can – but how many are going to bite?
RIM’s got something here that could really stand on top of the bajillion other crappy tablets that are going to launch this year. They just have to take it the rest of the way.
Thomas Tran
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 7:59 PMIf this thing requires a Blackberry phone to access all of the Playbook’s features than they are going to miss out in a lot of potential customers. My friend really, really wants one, but she’s an iPhone user. I’m going to have to advise her against buying it now….
Ian
Wednesday, May 4, 2011 at 9:31 PMas mentioned at blackberry world as well, native email calender etc, will be available in the US summer. So no you wont need a blackberry phone to access all features. Video Chat and Facebook App were added just yesterday. New features are being added daily. This article is old
johntiisetso
Friday, March 16, 2012 at 12:41 AMI think thats the whole idea. ever heard of the word “it runs in the family”? that was the point and their sell point so that you stick with the BlackBerry Products. the fact that it gives the feel of extension of your phone, awesome.
Benito Manna
Friday, January 14, 2011 at 7:15 PMnative calendar and e-mail will be on the unit on release and app world apps are growing faster