All the speed and swish on-screen genius does come at a price, as your PlayBook will drain pretty sharpish when in use.įor example, playing Need for Speed Undercover for an hour sees a charged battery down by a half. In terms of performance, the biggest bugbear has to be the battery life.
In this way, PlayBook is best viewed as a web device: certainly, the speed of its video streaming is exemplary, even with multiple streams going on at once. Power BlackBerry users are still annoyed that the company's secure email and calendar features aren't supported as native apps, currently only available in conjunction with your BlackBerry smartphone via BlackBerry Bridge. It won't replace your netbook in terms of ease of typing, but it's much better than some of the virtual keyboards out there (we're looking at you, Apple). There's also Microsoft Office-compatible software, such as Word to Go and Slideshow to Go, which work well with the surprisingly responsive on-screen keyboard (it has great audio feedback, too). Preinstalled apps include the obligatory web browser, Bing Maps, Kobo Books, Voice Notes, a music store powered by 7digital, and an impressively designed weather app.
Of course, the BlackBerry App World store will enable you to download games and apps as they become available, but there's not a large range of content, even months after launch. Yet, the big issue with BlackBerry 10 is that since it's a new operating system, few developers support it. Or why a swipe across your device from outside the frame through the carousel of live apps doesn't allow you to switch smoothly between them. Indeed, if you go back to other tablets after any length of time with a PlayBook, you'll find yourself swiping from above the screen downwards wondering why the home menu hasn't been pulled down. You use this to gain access to new user interface elements, which makes the navigation of menus sleek and weirdly fun. One element that stands out is the touch-sensitive frame or bevel that surrounds the screen. The first BlackBerry device to use what was called the QNX OS - now renamed as BlackBerry 10 - the PlayBook takes a different approach from iOS and Android. Its real strength and weakness, however, lie in the operating system and user experience.
In terms of a well-integrated hardware package, the PlayBook ranks pretty high in the list of iPad wannabes. Internally, there's also a six-axis gyroscope, magnetometer, and accelerometer. The latter's quality is pretty good, with excellent automatic white balance and autofocus.Ĭompleting the list of hardware features are the micro-HDMI output and mini-USB power slot (on the bottom edge) and the power button and a combined volume -/+ and play/pause button (on the top).
Its cameras can't be sniffed at either, with a 3-megapixel front facer for video calls and a 5-megapixel shooter at the rear, both of which can record 1080p video.
While this reviewer wasn't too keen on testing the limits too much (read: at all), it feels like the PlayBook could take plenty of punishment. Not backbreaking by any means at 425g / 0.9lb, but combined with its 9.7mm- or 0.38-inch thickness, it gives it a sturdy bearing to complement its hard metal screen rim and tactile plastic-coated rear. The Texas Instruments's 1GHz dual-core processor - including the PowerVR SGX540 as used in the Galaxy Tab and Nexus - powering the PlayBook ensures it's pretty speedy, with web browsing noticeably faster than other tablets.Īnd for a diminutive device, it's got a surprising heft to it. At 194 x 130mm (7.6 x 5.1 inches), it's on the small size - small enough to fit into your coat or jacket pocket - but the 1024圆00 pixel capacitive screen is exceptionally clear and responsive, boasting four-finger multi-touch. The first thing you'll notice about the PlayBook is its diminutive size. It's a lesson Canadian phone maker RIM has learnt hard with its BlackBerry PlayBook device, which originally priced from $499 / £399 for the 16GB version, has sold so badly the company had to write down almost $500 million in inventory costs.īut, that doesn't mean it's a bad tablet - just that the launch price was too high.
That no company - with the exception of online retailer Amazon - has come up with viable competition just demonstrates how difficult it is to juggle variables ranging from a device's technical specification to operating system, and app ecosystem to (especially) price to form a coherent package that will catch consumers' attention. The success of iPad has encouraged every OEM, whether mobile- or PC-based, to come up with its own version.