Seeing that tablets are all the rage and that many people are hooked on them, RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis finally revealed BlackBerry’s answer to the iPad: the Playbook.
They have proven to be unbeatable since they launched the BlackBerry line of smartphones. Many people, from famous celebrities and well-known politicians to ordinary people, now use BlackBerry phones. In fact, the BlackBerry was considered by many to be one of the best and most functional smartphones ever created. Now comes the playbook. This BlackBerry tablet makes use of the same operating system developed by QNX technology.
Playbook uses many platforms and technologies, some of which include AIR, Java, Adobe Flash, BlackBerry 6, Webkit/HTML5, POSIX OS, SMP, and Open GL. It’s also powered by RIM’s newest BlackBerry WebWorks platform. With that, Playbook earned the title of being the “fastest tablet ever created by RIM”.
In addition to its solid operating system and multiple platforms, it has a pretty good storage space with 1GB of RAM, a 5-megapixel rear lens perfect for those who want to do video conferences, and a 3-megapixel front camera. It has ‘horsepower’ for multitasking with its 1 GHz dual-core Cortex A9 processor. You can open multiple programs at the same time and it won’t affect performance. It will not hang or lag. The Playbook is capable of recording videos and transferring files via Bluetooth or WiFi.
For those who like to watch videos, movies and listen to songs, you will never worry about whether the files will be compatible or not. BlackBerry Playbook can play videos at full speed and in any format: MPEG, DivX, HD or WMV. File extensions for audio playback are also easy. You can listen to WMA, MP3 and AAC songs wherever and whenever you want.
One advantage of the Playbook over the iPad is that it is much smaller and more compact. Weighing exactly 0.9lbs or 400g, it’s definitely lighter than the iPad but bigger and heavier than the Samsung Galaxy Tab. It measures just 7 inches, about half the size of the iPad. This will allow you to easily take your desktop everywhere and never have to worry about it fitting into your bag. The developers are actually hinting that they are developing 3G and 4G Playbook models in the future. For avid readers, they will be more than happy to know that Playbook will feature a Kindle app that will allow them to read as many books as they want.
Another benefit is that Flash sites that don’t normally run on the iPad tablet will be viewable in Playbook. RIM promises to unlock Adobe AIR from Playbook to provide users with an uncompromising web experience. This means that you will be able to enjoy all the websites you want to visit without thinking about whether you will be able to access the sites. The Playbook is definitely more forgiving when it comes to what programs are allowed compared to the iPad.