iPad Rival PlayBook Gets Tough Reviews

KOMPAS.com - RIM's PlayBook tablet has bombed with influential technology reviewers who call the new iPad competitor a rushed job that won't even provide RIM's vaunted email service unless it's hooked up to a BlackBerry.

"RIM has just shipped a BlackBerry product that cannot do email. It must be skating season in hell," New York Times' David Pogue wrote in a review published yesterday.

Research In Motion built its reputation on a BlackBerry email service that it says is so secure that it can't bow to government requests to tap messages, winning high-profile customers in business, defence and politics before branching out to a wider consumer market.

The PlayBook, which hits North American retailers on Tuesday, so far offers that secure service only in tandem with a BlackBerry. RIM says secure email and other key services will come later, not at launch.

"I got the strong impression RIM is scrambling to get the product to market," Walt Mossberg, the widely followed business and consumer technology critic, wrote in a Wall Street Journal article headlined PlayBook: a tablet with a case of codependency.

The pessimism of the reviews seemed to hit RIM's often volatile shares, which fell 1.7 per cent to $US53.92 on the Nasdaq on Thursday, the lowest closing price since October 25.

RIM's 7-inch WiFi-only device is priced identically to Apple's 10-inch market leader and faces tough me-too competition from a slew of devices running Google's Android software.

It is a first step in a major product overhaul intended to reinvigorate RIM's fortunes. But the lukewarm initial reception, coupled with an outburst from co-Chief Executive Mike Lazaridis, threaten to overshadow the coming-out party.

Most reviewers have been impressed by the PlayBook's well-documented capability to handle Flash websites and its ability to show one high-definition image - a movie, for instance - on a connected TV, while doing something else on its own screen. Those are two things the iPad cannot do.

But reviewers paid more attention to what the PlayBook can't do. The PlayBook needs a smartphone to access a cellular network and a BlackBerry to tap into RIM's popular BlackBerry Messenger chat platform or get secure emails.