The much awaited BlackBerry Tablet was unveiled yesterday during RIM’s (Research In Motion) annual BlackBerry Developer Conference in San Francisco, California. CEO Mike Lazardis announced the company’s new product called the BlackBerry PlayBook. The BlackBerry PlayBook will run on an operating system called the BlackBerry Tablet OS that supports OpenGPL, POSIX, Webkit, HTML5, Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Mobile AIR, etc.
The BlackBerry PlayBook will also sport a 7-inch, 1024×600, WSVGA capacitive multitouch display, run on a (Cortex A9-based) dual-core 1GHz CPU and 1GB RAM. Other features include a 3-megapixel front-facing camera, a 5 megapixel rear lens that supports video conferencing, a HDMI port, microUSB jack, Bluetooh 2.1 and 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi. The PlayBook is expected to ship in two models – 16GB and 32GB.
Here’s preview video of the BlackBerry PlayBook:
Product Photos:
BlackBerry Playbook Tech Specs:
- 7-inch LCD, 1024 x 600, WSVGA, capacitive touch screen with full multi-touch and gesture support
- BlackBerry Tablet OS with support for symmetric multiprocessing
- 1 GHz dual-core processor
- 1 GB RAM
- 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
- Wi-Fi – 802.11 a/b/g/n
- Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
- Connectors: microHDMI, microUSB, charging contacts
- Open, flexible application platform with support for WebKit/HTML-5, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile AIR, Adobe Reader, POSIX, OpenGL, Java
- Measures 5.1″x7.6″x0.4″ (130mm x 193mm x 10mm)
- Weighs less than a pound (approximately 0.9 lb or 400g)
- RIM intends to also offer 3G and 4G models in the future
The BlackBerry PlayBook is scheduled to be available in retail outlets here in the United States by early 2011 and international markets by the 2nd quarter of 2011. For now, there’s no information regarding the retail price of the BlackBerry PlayBook. It will be interesting to see how they’re gonna market their new product – whether they’re gonna sell it the same price as the Apple iPad or sell it cheaper to attract more people to buy the PlayBook.
What do you think of BlackBerry’s new tablet – the PlayBook? Would you consider it as an iPad Killer? Which one would you rather purchase – the iPad or the PlayBook? Please share your thoughts.
why does the playbook not have a dvd/cd outlet for movioes/music…or better an outlet to burn tunes?
@icechen1 – As soon as the PlayBook is released, I’m pretty sure it won’t take long before someone does just that or try to install some third-party OS into the PlayBook.
Now if we can get Android running on that, it’ll be awesome.
@Joie – I’m sure they will. Regarding the iPad vs Playbook comparison, it will be nice if I have both so I can make a good review. Unfortunately, I don’t have either one of them. Hehe :D
I am sure Blackberry users will love this one. I agree with Aaron. Looks like a great competitor to iPad. I like this competition iPad VS Playbook.
@Jaypee
I would like to see how you compare this two bai.. I will be waiting…
@Aaron – Thanks! It sure looks like it. The more competitor iPad has, the better so it’ll drive Apple to come up with better features and sell them for a more competitive price. :)
Good review Jaypee. It looks like a great competitor to the iPad and other clones. I really do hope this does well for them.. it looks great at least.