Officially announced in September of last year, the long-awaited BlackBerry PlayBook finally goes on sale April 19th, with a starting price of $499. Featuring the all-new BlackBerry Tablet OS, the PlayBook sports a 7" display that makes this tablet more portable for everyday use than Apple's iPad.
With solid hardware specs, an operating system that utilizes a gesture-based user interface to deliver true multitasking capabilities and a web browser that supports Adobe Flash, on paper the PlayBook appears to have the raw talent to be a contender. Heck, it even won the first ever Tablet World Series before it was ever released. But pre-release hype is one thing and real-world performance is another. RIM hopes to leverage their success in smartphones and emerge as a major competitor in the tablet game when it steps up to the plate. Does the PlayBook have what it takes to crank out a homerun? Read our full review to find out!
Research In Motion is going through a major transition right now. While much improvement has come to BlackBerry Smartphones over the years and the upcoming BlackBerry 6.1 OS looks to push things even farther, the traditional BlackBerry OS on phones is hitting a point of maturity where RIM's only option is to start with something new. For companies like Motorola, HTC, Samsung and LG, Google's Android operating system has been the life-saving fresh start that has allowed them to compete against Apple's iOS. Not wanting to lose control of their destiny and be regulated to an Android hardware manufacturer trying to differentiate itself from other Android hardware manufacturers, RIM made the decision to play the game on their own terms. Over the past few years RIM has been building up its team, acquiring the players it needs to fix their historic weaknesses and "future proof" the company (a term RIM's Co-CEO Jim Balsillie used on their last Earnings Call). Some of the acquisitions relevant to the BlackBerry PlayBook include:
- QNX - makers of the powerful MicroKernal QNX Neutrino operating system upon which the BlackBerry Tablet OS is built
- Torch Mobile - WebKit browser gurus who fixed up BlackBerry's traditionally poor web browsing experience
- The Astonishing Tribe - Creative geniuses and UI experts who, while arriving a little late on the PlayBook project, helped shape some of the aspects of the user experience and will play a much larger role in this moving ahead (a company called Teknision is responsible for a lot of the user interface design on the PlayBook).
- Dataviz - While RIM didn't buy DataViz outright, they bought a lot of their talent and assets including Documents To Go, which allows for Word, Excel, Powerpoint creation and editing (the premium version of these apps are included free on the PlayBook)
Blackberry Playbook Specifications
- 7" LCD, 1024 x 600, WSVGA, capacitive touch screen with full multi-touch and gesture support
- BlackBerry Tablet OS with support for symmetric multiprocessing
- Texas Instruments OMAP4430 Processor, Dual Core @ 1GHz
- IVA 3 hardware accelerators enable full HD 1080p, multi-standard video encode/decode
- Faster, higher-quality image and video capture with digital SLR-like imaging up to 20 megapixels
- Dual-core ARM® Cortex -A9 MPCore with Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP)
- Integrated POWERVR SGX540 graphics accelerator drives 3D gaming and 3D user interfaces
- 1 GB RAM
- Memory: 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions to be available
- 5300mAh battery
- Dual HD cameras (3 MP front facing, 5 MP rear facing), supports 1080p HD video recording
- Video playback: 1080p HD Video, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV
- Audio playback: MP3, AAC, WMA
- HDMI video output
- GPS and Wi-Fi - 802.11 a/b/g/n
- Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
- Connectors: microHDMI, microUSB, 3.5mm headset port, charging contacts
- Open, flexible application platform with support for WebKit/HTML-5, Adobe Flash Player 10.2, Adobe Mobile AIR, Adobe Reader, POSIX, OpenGL, Java
- Ultra thin and portable: Measures 5.1"x7.6"x0.4" (130mm x 193mm x 10mm) & Weighs less than a pound (approximately 0.9 lb or 400g)
Blackberry Playbook Unboxing video
At launch on April 19th, WiFi-only versions of the BlackBerry PlayBook will be available, priced at $499, $599 and $699 for 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions. The BlackBerry PlayBook will first be available within North America. RIM has also already announced that a 4G version of the PlayBook will arrive at Sprint this summer, and LTE and HSPA+ versions of the PlayBook are also on the way (likely this fall).
For their first ever tablet, Research In Motion chose to give the BlackBerry PlayBook a 7" display with an HD aspect ratio (16:9). At 5.6" tall and 7.6" wide, the PlayBook is small enough to fit in many coat pockets, purses, handbags, etc., making it much more portable for out-of-the-home use than Apple's iPad. Having tag lined the PlayBook as the First Professional Grade Tablet, I think RIM's aim here was to differentiate from the incumbent iPad by selling a tablet that you're more likely to carry with you everywhere you go (as in a business person carrying it in their inside suit jacket pocket). Being an owner of both the iPad and iPad 2, I can honestly say the only time I ever leave home with my iPad is when I'm traveling (it's definitely a great device for killing time on an airplane). It's too big to carry around with me and a little too ostentatious (for my tastes anyways) to bust out in public. With the PlayBook's smaller size and unpretentious styling I can actually see myself putting it in my coat pocket before I leave the house and actually putting it to use when out and about.
While portability and in-hand comfort are the major benefits of the PlayBook's small-by-tablet-standards stature, the consequence is that you have a smaller screen for when you're actually using the device. Are all 7" tablets DOA as Steve Jobs has suggested? I personally don't think so (neither does RIM - see their response to Steve Jobs' comments), but there are definitely certain apps/tasks (like web browsing) where having a bigger screen on the PlayBook would make for a more enjoyable experience. Knowing RIM and knowing that the company has always offered a variety of form factor options on their smartphones, I guarantee a 10" tablet is on the BlackBerry product roadmap.
Another benefit of the 7" form factor is that it makes typing on a touchscreen not too bad! I actually don't mind typing on the PlayBook's landscape keyboard, and really enjoy typing on it in portrait mode - it's narrow enough that you can use both thumbs like a traditional physical keyboard on a BlackBerry Smartphone.A nice touch RIM put it into the BlackBerry Tablet OS is contextualized keyboards, as in when you're in the web browser you get the .com button which helps speed up the process of typing in URLs (it's not present outside the web browser). Within the device settings you can easily change up the Keyboard settings to Qwertz or Azerty if that's what you prefer.One not so cool thing related to the keyboard is the complete lack of automatic word suggestion/correction while typing. I'm guessing this one is in the works and will come to the PlayBook via a future software update.
Dual Core Processor
I think a lot of people we're surprised when Texas Instruments announced it was supplying the OMAP4430 as the processor for the BlackBerry PlayBook. Without getting into the details (those who do want the full details can read about them on TI's site here), the OMAP4430 packs a ton of processing capability into the guts of the PlayBook. Support is there for full 1080p video recording and the graphics accelerator guarantees the BlackBerry PlayBook can power 3D games user interfaces without skipping a beat (be sure to check out this 3D UI demo on the BlackBerry Playbook). And despite the power, it has a very low battery draw, helping to maximize time between charges.
Between the native apps that come pre-loaded on the PlayBook and the third party ones that are currently available in App World for it (mainly flash web apps that have been ported over - no Open GL/3D graphics in them), I get the sense that the PlayBook as it ships on April 19th will barely be tapping into the capabilities of what the hardware is capable of supporting. Once the Native Development Kit gets released into more developers' hands, we should see some really awe-inspiring apps get built for the PlayBook. Hopefully that's the case, as we know the hardware can support it.
As for the basic task of powering the BlackBerry Tablet OS through its everyday multitasking ways, the processors seem up to the challenge. The basic user experience is snappy and the PlayBook handles running and jumping between multiple apps with ease. It sometimes feels like opening apps takes a little longer than it should (for some reason the web browser is always kind of slow to open up), but I think things like this have more to do with further optimizing the BlackBerry Tablet OS than they do guts under the hood.
The BlackBerry PlayBook is available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB configurations and that storage memory can be used for anything from video, photo and file storage to gigabytes worth of apps. Finally a BlackBerry that's not limited to 512MB or less of room for apps!
Looking at the About > Hardware screen on the system settings, on my 32GB review unit it shows the Total Available storage as being 29.6GB. I assume this means the OS and native apps eat up about 2.4GB of space, meaning you can expect a 16GB PlayBook to have 13.6GB of free storage out of the box, and a 64GB PlayBook to have 61.6GB. We'll confirm that's the case when commercial units starts selling. There is no expansion slot for an sliding in a microSD card.
As for RAM, the PlayBook has 1GB of it, and after a few days of use I'm starting to think the PlayBook would benefit from a second gigabyte. On a few occasions now while running multiple apps I have received the notification that the "System is running low on memory - please close some applications." On these occasions I've only had maybe five or six apps running (mainly media apps and the web browser) so I was almost surprised to see this message pop up. We've seen so many PlayBook demos over the past six months when multiple apps are running at one time that I was sort of under the impression the PlayBook could never run out of RAM (it should be noted that I did have background apps set to Pause when not active - so it wasn't like the demos where there's videos and youtube movies all playing at once). The silver lining here is that despite getting the notification for low memory, the device never actually slowed down. If available memory does get to low, it looks like the BlackBerry Tablet OS just closes one of the inactive but open apps at random (I'm guessing this might change in the future - doesn't seem totally user friendly).
After a fresh restart, and again looking at the About > Hardware screen, the PlayBook shows 535.6MB of Free Memory (RAM) of the 1GB of the total 1GB. This means with no apps running at all, the BlackBerry Tablet OS is eating up over 650MB of memory. That's a lot. If the BlackBerry Tablet OS is that memory hungry, it really makes me wish RIM would have upped it to 2GB. Seeing a low memory warning doesn't feel very "professional grade" to me, and having a BlackBerry that's low on memory feels more like the old RIM than a new RIM.
Battery Life
After a lot of rumor and speculation that the BlackBerry PlayBook would suffer from horrible battery life, the rumors seem to have been unfounded. RIM has rated the PlayBook's battery life for 8 to 10 hours of continual use (it's going to be better/worse depending on exactly what you get up to on the device) and during my few days on the device I've found the battery life to be acceptable. I haven't done a straight out battery drain test on it or head to head tests against the iPad to see how the drain compares for similar tasks, but during my review use (where I go pretty hard on the device) I've found it can take anywhere from 2.5 to 6 minutes to kill a single % off of the battery life indicator depending what I'm doing. This jives with hitting up to 10 hours of battery life, but also being able to drain it quite a bit quicker if you really try to.
The average person who puts the BlackBerry PlayBook to use each day should be able to get away with just having to charge it at night. And for those who use it less, the battery level barely moves when you leave the device in standby overnight. It should be noted that when in standby mode the device isn't totally powered down - the PlayBook's bezels are "alive" enough to be listening for the gesture to power it back up, and we're told that even in standby the WiFi and Bluetooth connections are kept alive (maybe not fully alive, but they're not totally dead...). This enables the WiFi File Sharing to become a really neat feature of the device. You can literally have the PlayBook packed in your travel bag by the door the night before you head out on a flight and be dragging files onto to your PlayBook from your desktop computer on the other side of your home.
Unlike BlackBerry Smartphones, the PlayBook does not feature a removable battery that can easily be replaced. I'm not sure yet on how many recharge cycles the battery is rated for (I'm guessing it should be good for a few years even if charged daily) and as I write this I'm waiting for a response on RIM as to what the procedure will be on getting the battery replaced should it ever need to be replaced (my guess is through RIM directly per this information we posted recently that RIM will handle BlackBerry PlayBook warranty directly).
Cameras/Video Recording
here's the actual photo that was taken on the PlayBook (resized but not edited)
Unlike Apple on the iPad 2, RIM didn't cheap out on the cameras on the BlackBerry PlayBook. With a 3 megapixel forward facing camera and 5 megapixel camera on the back, both capable of recording up to 1080p resolution, the PlayBook takes some solid photos and videos. There's no flash, but the photos and recording are pretty decent even in low-ish light. A benefit of the PlayBook's smaller size is that I don't feel like a tool using it for snapping photos or taking videos (its footprint isn't all that different than my SLR). On a device like the iPad 2 you can't help but feel a little dumb holding it at arm's length and snapping a photo. The PlayBook is small enough that if you bust it out in public to grab a photo or video you won't get that many onlookers staring at you like you're crazy.
Bluetooth Fun: Controlling the PlayBook w/ Mouse and Keyboard
With Bluetooth support you can wirelessly connect your PlayBook to an array of different devices. We already mentioned audio devices above, but you can also pair with input devices, such as a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. It turns out the BlackBerry Tablet OS has full mouse support! Check out the video below where I connect the PlayBook to a TV via HDMI then control it from across the room via a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. It's pretty crazy! As you'll note in the video, at first I couldn't figure out how to do gestures with a mouse - it turns out you go to the edge of the display and hold down the right mouse button and then swipe. I'm not sure this is a feature I'd use on a regular basis, but it definitely shows off some of the power in the platform.
WiFi - Hooking up the Gogo Inflight
As you would expect with a WiFi tablet, the PlayBook supports 802.11 a/b/g/n. My first test for the PlayBook was on the flight home from NYC after receiving my review unit, where I hooked it up to Delta's Gogo Inflight service.For the most part I've found the WiFi performance of the PlayBook to be pretty good, though I have found on a couple of occasions where the PlayBook didn't want to automatically rejoin a previous network (coming back to my office from my home, it was stuck on the networks near my home until I turned off and turned back on WiFi). I haven't found this to be an issue recently though, so hopefully it was a fixed issue in the latest software builds.
Other Hardware Internals
GPS: While GPS wasn't on the specs list when the PlayBook was first announced, it does in fact have GPS and the PlayBook comes loaded with Bing Maps. I wasn't very impressed by the Bing Maps app during the time I spent with it (it was more frustrating than helpful - I'm pretty sure it was just a WebWorks-built app that was piping in the bing.com/maps site), so for now I'll stick to Google Maps and BlackBerry Maps on my BlackBerry Smartphone until a better mapping app gets released for the PlayBook.
Speakers: The built-in speakers on the PlayBook do a good job of getting sound out of the device. Other sound options of course include plugging in a set of headphones, hooking up the PlayBook via HDMI to a more serious entertainment system, or connecting via Bluetooth to audio output devices (stereo Bluetooth headphones, Bluetooth speakers, etc.).
Homescreen Experience, Gesture-Based Navigation & UI
Unlike the traditional BlackBerry Smartphone OS which was never originally designed for touchscreens (even though RIM has now managed to make it relatively touchscreen friendly), the BlackBerry PlayBook's Tablet OS has completely been designed for touchscreen use. The best way to learn about the new homescreen experience and multitasking friendly gesture-based UI is to see it in action, so check out the video above and/or read our BlackBerry PlayBook Gestures and Navigation Tutorial.
The PlayBook's basic navigation gestures include:
- Showing the homescreen - swipe up from the bottom frame onto the screen
- Show the options menu within apps - swipe down from top frame
- Switch between open apps - swipe left or right from the side frames
- Show the status bar - diagonal wipe onto the screen from top left or right corner
- Show keyboard - diagonal swipe onto the screen from the bottom left corner
Beyond the bezel gestures, the PlayBook of course includes the expected on screen gestures like swiping, pinching and dragging. You can close open apps by swiping them from the screen up to the top bezel.
After using the PlayBook for a few days, I've come to enjoy the user interface on the PlayBook, though it did take a little getting used to. It's funny - as a BlackBerry Smartphone user I'm accustomed to pushing buttons. The BlackBerry menu key and back button get a workout all day long on my Bold 9780 and Torch. The PlayBook UI has no buttons. That's even fewer than Apple's iPad, which still has the single return home button at the bottom of the device.
The bezel gestures are not exactly what I'd call intuitive - I'm pretty sure if you hand a PlayBook to somebody without first explaining how to use it they're going to get confused real quick as they attempt to swipe around the device. But once you invest a minute into learning the bezel gestures and actually use the device for a bit, they become natural. Having to push a button on the iPad to return to the homescreen seems so old school now compared to swiping up from the BlackBerry logo on the PlayBook. I really like that within apps you can always pull in the main status bar (swipe in from an angle from the top left or right corner). I was concerned at first that the PlayBook didn't have a physical button for locking screen orientation (I thought I would have to exit an app and relock it from the homescreen and then re-enter an app), but this ability to pull down the status bar means you can do this from within any app.
Arguably the most important bezel gesture on the device is also the one that's somehow the easiest to forget about, and that's the swipe down gesture from the top bezel that reveals an app's options. Swiping down from the top on the homescreen brings down the settings screen (also accessible by tapping the gear in the top right corner of the main status bar), but within apps it brings down an app's options if there are any.
There's a pro and a con associated with this gesture. The benefit is that it maximizes the physical size of the screen, as you're able to leave the less important items off of the main UI of the app that would take up real estate if they were always present. This helps get you more bang for the buck out of the 7" display. The problem is that you have to think about swiping down, which isn't necessarily the first thing on your mind. Seriously, I used the camera and video app for three days before I realized you could swipe down to change up the settings. Or take the calculator app for example. Calculators are typically pretty simple apps that don't really need options (they're all present on the calculator keypad buttons). Yet swiping down within the Calculator app reveals that there is also a Scientific Calculator, Unit Converter and Tip Calculator. You could easily miss these if you didn't think to swipe. Compounding this issue is that it's not a consistent implementation. For example, swiping down within App World does nothing, which almost makes you think something is missing since most other apps seem to have swipe down menus. And then you have the case of the Music app, where swiping down when on the Music App's homepage does nothing, but once you click into a section like Albums then the swipe down gesture provides navigation to jump around within the Music App. I'm not sure what the remedy to this issue is, or if it's even an issue at all (I just think it forces me to think too much, when it should be laid out in such a way that it seems natural). The main homescreen uses a little up arrow indicator letting you know you can tap up to expand the homescreen icon trays. Maybe when there's an option menu present there needs to be an indicator of some sort letting you know you can swipe down? That sort of defeats the purpose of intuitive gestures - they shouldn't need calling cards tied to them... but I don't know... it just feels like this is an area of the user experience that can still be improved.
The basic homescreen experience is pretty straight forward and does maintain some of that BlackBerry 6 feeling by introducing different views for All, Favorites, Media and Games. Moving and deleting apps is easily done from the homescreen (tap and hold to put them into a breathing/editable state). Knowing which apps are open and jumping in between them is really simple and intuitive thanks to the WebOS-like navigator area of the OS. When you tap an app open it goes full screen, but when you return to the homescreen is stays in a floating minimized view above the icon tray. Within settings you can choose if you want to leave minimized apps running, paused or active until another app goes full screen.
While there is an LED light on the PlayBook, notifications are done much more visually on the top left corner of the display itself. If you're in apps when a notification comes through the top left corner of the screen glows red and you can swipe in the notification, or if on the homescreen it's an exclamation point alert you can tap. Device settings on the PlayBook are basic, if not limited compared to the plethora of options on BlackBerry Smartphones. You can change the wallpaper but there's no themes as there are on the phones. You can't change the default font sizes (you can for the browser with in the browser app itself), etc. I'm sure a lot of this customization will get built into the operating system as RIM pushes the OS through from where it is today to get ready for QNX on BlackBerry Smartphones. App options still live within apps. So to clear your web browser cache for example, you do it within the web browser app vs. the main system settings.
One of the things lacking from the homescreen experience that I'd still love to see implemented by RIM is the use of widgets. The BlackBerry Tablet OS homescreen experience makes opening apps and jumping between open apps very fluid and smooth, but with tablet-sized screen real estate I'd love to have the option to get my critical info at a glance from my homescreen, be it weather updates, breaking news headlines, stock quotes, etc. vs. having to open apps to retrieve that data. While that's more of a wish list item, another more critical feature that's missing is Universal Search, which I've now become spoiled with on BlackBerry 6 and am missing on the BlackBerry Tablet OS.
Also new to the setup process is checking for software updates, and if available, downloading and installing them directly during setup. I'm betting that come April 19th, the first thing new PlayBook owners will be doing is updating their OS. Luckily, this process on the PlayBook is dead simple.
Also in the setup process are tutorials for learning about the homescreen and how to access menus with apps. Both are important as the PlayBook's gesture-based interface does require a little education up front. The PlayBook definitely offers a much more friendly straight out of the box experience than BlackBerry Smartphones.
Web Browser
When we ran a poll on CrackBerry recently asking readers what the top three things they planned to do with their BlackBerry PlayBook are, the #1 popular vote was Web Browsing. So how does the PlayBook's web browser standup to real world use?
Long story short, it's good, but it would definitely be better if you had a 10" PlayBook rather than a 7" one. The Tablet OS' browser is similar to the BlackBerry 6 web browser, but the Torch mobile team has pushed it much further to take advantage of the PlayBook's hardware capabilities. Unlike Apple's Safari mobile browser, the PlayBook supports Adobe Flash, and when you visit websites you typically get served up the full website and not a mobile version. Anybody who owns an iPad and has tried to watch a video from within Facebook knows it won't play - on the PlayBook you can watch them straight in the stream. And on sites like CrackBerry, where we embed a lot of youtube videos directly into blog posts, they load and play smoothly, and scale up easily to full screen viewing (tip: swipe down to return to web page view). I haven't tested out every site on the web just yet, but most seem to work quite well on PlayBook's browser, including Amazon's Cloud Player (so if you have more music than you can fit on the PlayBook you can still access it).
You also have the ability to disable flash, which is a good option to have and one you may want to put to use if you mainly visit sites that don't use flash, other than in ads. When we put the PlayBook head to head against the iPad 2 in a browser shootout (see below), we saw pretty comparable page load times but did notice on websites where there were flash-based advertisements present, this would slow down the PlayBook by a few seconds while the iPad 2 would serve up a faster loading static image. Disabling flash evened out the load times. I found an online flash test and loaded it up on the PlayBook, and had Phil do the same test on the Motorola Xoom. The PlayBook beat the Xoom, scoring 4438 and failing on the medium test (the Xoom scored 4048 and also failed on the medium test). In comparison, my computer scored 26,920 via Firefox passing with an Awesome rating. Looks like there's still room to further improve flash on tablets!
I have been finding that while having a web browser capable of browsing the full web is a good thing, it can also make for some added frustrations vs. just sucking it up and going to a mobile site or using an app, if available for that site, instead. For example, while Facebook chat works on the PlayBook's web browser (so does Farmville), I found actually using Facebook chat to be more of a challenge than its worth (I'd rather have a Facebook Chat app).
In the same vein, I've been wanting to upload a video from the PlayBook straight to youtube, and apparently that's something you cannot do at this time (it is pretty sweet though that the web browser does allow for attachments). The native youtube app doesn't have a built-in uploader, and when I go to the full youtube.com website on the PlayBook I can login, go to the upload page, select the video I want to upload from the PlayBook's file browser, and then nothing happens. While it may not have been working for me in youtube, the browser does support the PlayBook's built-in file browser. You can upload pictures in facebook, or send attachments via gmail (though you'll have to click back to the Basic HTML gmail app as the default mobile one that loads does not support attachments).
I found it interesting to see within the web browser that the old tap and hold gesture from BlackBerry 6 has carried through to the BlackBerry Tablet OS, which pops up a menu displaying options. You can tap and hold on an image to save it, or tap and hold on a link to open in a new tab, or tap and hold on paragraph text to bring up the select text cursors for copying text to the clipboard (this tap and hold gesture also works in other apps where text is present, like copying and pasting within a Word document).
I've played with the PlayBook's web browser every chance I've had since first going hands-on with it in January, and it's continually improved. That said, I think it'll just keep getting better. Right now I've noticed it seems to be a fairly slow app to load when first launched off the homescreen. I also managed to crash it a couple times (running multiple tabs, watching videos on each tab, attempting to Facebook chat in another, etc). Well, technically I don't think I crashed it, but rather that the PlayBook's web browser eats up the available device memory and when the PlayBook begins to run out of memory it begins closing apps at random (and if the browser is the only one open it'll close the one you're in). I've received the low memory alert quite a few times on the PlayBook now, and it definitely seems to occur more readily when the browser is one of my open apps and I have a couple of tabs open. I'm not sure if the browser has a memory leak or it's just a hog on memory, but hopefully RIM can clean it up a bit still. At least when it does crash there's no need for a battery pull. Props to the QNX-based OS for maintaining its stability.
One thing to be aware of with the web browser, that won't be fixed with software updates, is accidental gesturing out of the browser. In the web browser I find myself doing a lot of zooming, and when working at my normal pace that means I'm pinching in and out and scrolling fast. On quite a few occasions now that's lead to me accidentally bezel gesturing my way out of the browser and back to the homescreen, or pulling down the options menu unexpectedly. If the form factor was smaller (ie. a phone) this probably wouldn't happen as I'd be forced to really be careful with my finger tips, or if it was bigger I'd be ok as there would be more room on the display, but the PlayBook is just big enough where you're very quickly working on the screen but then if not paying attention can run your fingers off it onto the those touch-sensitive edges.
Another really strange quirk in the web browser is the fact that if you hold the device with one hand (say your left hand) and hold it in such a way that your thumb lies flat on the bezel (not touching the display, but getting close), that you can no longer scroll in the web browser. It's tripped me up a few times and is hopefully something that can be fixed with a software update, as it seems to be just within the web browser that this happens.
BlackBerry Bridge and Native Email, PIM, and BBM
For people who own both a BlackBerry Smartphone and a BlackBerry PlayBook, the BlackBerry Bridge provides a set of additional apps on the PlayBook that allow you to interact with many of the core native apps on the BlackBerry Smartphone, including email, calendar, contacts, BlackBerry Messenger and more (no SMS app at this time to send texts from your phone via your PlayBook, though I'm told they could technically build one).
The connection between the two devices is made wirelessly via Bluetooth. When the Bridge connection is active, the PlayBook acts as an external terminal for the BlackBerry Smartphone - both displaying your phone's data on the PlayBook and allowing you to enter data on your phone from the tablet via the PlayBook's bridge apps. These apps have been enhanced to make use of the tablet's touchscreen and larger screen real estate. No data is actually ever stored on the PlayBook - the PlayBook simply acts as window to the BlackBerry Smartphone. You can almost think of it as Go To My PC for your BlackBerry Smartphone (or RIM's version of Palm's Foleo, if you remember that).
If that still sounds confusing, the best thing to do is visualize it with an example. With the BlackBerry Bridge connected, you can have your BlackBerry Smartphone in your pocket or purse but be emailing and BBMing to your heart's content from the PlayBook in your hands. The phone in your pocket is actually still doing the sending and receiving of emails and BBMs back and forth to RIM's servers via your phone's carrier connection, but it feels as if it's happening from the PlayBook directly.
Only last night did I receive a software update on my PlayBook that enabled an almost-complete version BlackBerry Bridge (it was missing BBM and file attachments - will do up a new video once I get a final version of Bridge). Enabling the Bridge definitely added an extra feeling of fullness and life to the BlackBerry PlayBook. Until I hooked up the bridge, the only notification icons I saw on the PlayBook were for bad things (low battery life, low memory). With Bridge now hooked up, my PlayBook started to feel like a true BlackBerry device, with a notification light that calls out to me when I have an incoming message. There's definitely lag in using the Bridge apps, but I wouldn't call them entirely slow. They'd be much faster if native though, and the fact that the Bridge apps fill up the PlayBook's screen so nicely just make me wish they were native. I was hoping enabling the Bridge might also add more connectivity and sharing options throughout the OS, like being able to send photo via email directly from the photos app, but that appears not to be the case. Once the initial Bridge has been made, the Bridge menu option and Bridge apps are permanently placed on the homescreen - disconnecting the Bridge doesn't remove the Bridge apps, it just grays them out. Tapping on an inactive Bridge app will actually restart the Bridge and open the app. That being the case, it actually does a very good job of simulating the feeling of native email and PIM apps on the PlayBook. Assuming your BlackBerry is always with you (which it usually is), and you keep Bluetooth enabled on your phone and tablet, the experience feels almost, but not quite, native.
Why No Native Email, Calendar, Contacts, BBM on the BlackBerry PlayBook? RIM has christened the BlackBerry PlayBook as The First Professional Grade Tablet. To be able to lay claim to that title and to get to market sooner rather than later, RIM has to ensure the BlackBerry PlayBook is secure. The BlackBerry Smartphone and traditional BlackBerry Operating System (as found in phones) are trusted and battle tested by enterprise. For the past decade they have proven their security. The BlackBerry Tablet OS is built upon the QNX operating system, not the traditional BlackBerry Operating System found in phones. While RIM is working hard to secure up QNX and to hook the PlayBook up directly to RIM's servers (and as discussed above also needs to deal with the issue of multiple pins working together for one user), the quickest way for RIM to create a secure environment on their tablet was to piggy back on the security of the phones. Because none of the critical BlackBerry Bridge data is actually stored on the PlayBook or transmitted to servers directly from the PlayBook, the device is as secure as BlackBerry Smartphones since the paired BlackBerry Smartphone is the secure tunnel connection back to RIM from the PlayBook. So in enterprise, the PlayBook represents the best of both worlds - all of the security of BlackBerry Smartphones combined with the benefits of the tablet form factor and new operating system. RIM has already said that native email, PIM, BlackBerry Messenger, etc. support will come to the PlayBook, but in the meantime the BlackBerry Bridge allows them to get into market quickly and securely. For consumers however, especially those who don't have a BlackBerry Smartphone to bridge to, it means you're going to be stuck using webmail via the web browser for the time being, or hopefully some third party developers will build some apps. The good news is that once native email and PIM support is rolled out by RIM, it should be made available to all PlayBooks, even the WiFi-only versions, via a software update. Here's to hoping that happens asap.
Internet Tethering
The WiFi only version of the BlackBerry PlayBook does not have a cellular radio in it like a smartphone does. When you are out of a WiFi zone, the tablet has no data connection. Internet tethering is a mode of connectivity that allows the BlackBerry PlayBook to make use of/share another mobile device's data connection. The connection is made between the PlayBook and other mobile device via Bluetooth. The PlayBook can tether via any mobile device that supports Bluetooth tethering via the dial up networking protocol. It does not have to be a BlackBerry Smartphone. Once tethered, the PlayBook can now run applications that require data, including the web browser.
Tethering the PlayBook to my Bold 9780 was a pretty simple process as demonstrated in the video above. The speed for web browsing is OK, but not super fast. At least with full multi-tasking you can leave the web browser while a page is loading, do something else for a few seconds, and come back to it when it's done.
Productivity Apps & Presenter Mode
As the First Professional Grade Tablet you'd expect to be able to get some work done on the PlayBook, and RIM has included premium versions of Word To Go, Sheet To Go, and Slideshow To Go on the device, as well as Adobe Reader. Heck, I guess we could even consider the Calculator, Weather and Clock apps to be productivity apps too (click the links to see a video of each one). Presenter Mode is an awesome feature on the PlayBook which allows you to deliver presentations from your BlackBerry via the HDMI output. Rather than the external display just mirroring what's on the tablet, you can actually put your PowerPoint presentation or videos onto the external display and then continue to use the tablet. You can even jump seamlessly between video and PowerPoint. Check out the video below to see it in action!
BlackBerry App World, 3rd Party Apps, and Apps on Android
Installing apps onto the BlackBerry PlayBook is done directly via BlackBerry App World which comes preinstalled on the device (see video above). At launch RIM says there will be over 3,000 tablet apps in App World for the PlayBook, which is more tablet-specific apps than both Apple and Android had at the launch of their tablets. As I write this review prior to the release of the device I don't think the full 3,000 have been made public yet (it's up to individual companies to publish their apps as live), so hopefully come launch day the selection of PlayBook apps will be larger and more enticing than what I have experienced so far. The App World app itself is really nice, and the process of downloading, installing, and deleting apps is straight forward. You can check out the video below to see it in action. One thing I have to admit I found funny with App World on the PlayBook was Support. If you click the Support button on any app page, you'll get the developer's name and email address. Unfortunately, with no native email support you can't do anything with it. You literally have to copy it down on paper so you don't forget it, then go to your email and type it in. Not cool.
Browsing through App World on the PlayBook so far it's mainly games that I have come across, and to be dead honest most have been not very good (I'd say two are acceptable for every 10 downloaded - a few were so bad they made me laugh out loud). From what I can tell, most of the apps currently in the catalog look to be web flash games that individuals have ported over via the Adobe Air SDK. Hopefully once the Native Development Kit gets released we should see the quality of apps and games improve. Need For Speed Undercover, which comes pre-installed for free on the PlayBook along with Tetris, was built on the NDK and looks great! (see video).
While the world does seem to be obsessed about the quantity of apps in an app store, I'm personally more concerned about the handful of critical apps that matter to me and I'm sure most of you reading this have your own handful of must-have apps too. Amazon announced previously they would be building a Kindle app for the PlayBook - I don't see it in App World as of now but hopefully it's there soon. No sign of Angry Birds yet, but hopefully the folks at Rovio will do it up for the PlayBook.
RIM let us know that the following companies are working on PlayBook apps (this doesn't mean they'll necessarily be there at launch, but they will be announcing/releasing PlayBook apps sooner rather than later):
Adobe Connect & Lifecycle, Airplay, Atari, BoxTone, Cerner Corporation, Digital Chocolate, EA, eBay, EpixHD, Evernote, FGL, Fortune, Gameloft, Globe & Mail, HFMUS - Car and Driver magazine, Huffington Post, Loblaws, Mattel, MediaFly, OpenText Everywhere, Post Media, Salesforce.com - Chatter, ScoreMedia (ScoreMobile), Slacker Radio, Sports Illustrated, Telicost (Anomalous Networks), The Weather Channel, The Weather Network, Time, Unity3D
Seeing Atari, EA and Gameloft on the lists should mean for some solid PlayBook games, as does the fact RIM announced support for AirPlay and Unity, which are leading game engines. RIM also announced recently that support for Android Apps is coming to the BlackBerry PlayBook. We're still curious to see how Android apps will run and play on the PlayBook and what sort of ongoing impact this is going to have on the BlackBerry app ecosystem moving ahead. BlackBerry World is coming up the beginning of May, where we should get our first glimpse of the Android App Player on the PlayBook. In addition to support for Android apps, RIM will also be putting an App Player on the PlayBook for existing BlackBerry Smartphone apps.
I was really hoping RIM's offer of free PlayBooks to developers who submitted PlayBook apps to App World would result in 50,000 awesome apps for launch day on the 19th. It doesn't look like that quite happened, but hopefully once the PlayBook hits store shelves and developers take a look at the device we'll start seeing more pickup on the app front.
Source: Crackberry
