BlackBerry Playbook

Adam Turner

KOMPAS.com - The Playbook makes a great first impression, but it's too reliant on a BlackBerry smartphone for my liking.

We’re drowning in a sea of 10-inch tablets, so it was a relief to slide the BlackBerry Playbook out of the box to discover a petite 7-inch slate that’s even lighter than the iPad 2. I think the 7-inch form factor is more practical for road warriors, so it makes sense that business-focused RIM should design a 7-inch tablet as a companion for its high-end BlackBerry smartphones.

Actually “companion” perhaps isn’t the right word, as it’s more of a symbiotic relationship between the Playbook and BlackBerry phones. I’ll go into more detail later, but the cynic in me suspects that the Playbook is partially designed to lock-in BlackBerry users tempted by other tablets.

Perhaps RIM is worried that BlackBerry users might buy an Apple or Android tablet, fall in love with the OS and then ditch their BlackBerry smartphone (known as the halo effect).  In order to fight back, RIM is giving BlackBerry owners a tablet of their own.

Once you owned a Playbook you’d be much less likely to abandon your BlackBerry smartphone because you’d lose access to some Playbook features. Even if I was a BlackBerry user, this kind of customer lock-in would certainly make me consider the Android and Apple alternatives before taking the plunge with the Playbook.

The 16GB Playbook retails for $US499 and there are also 32GB and 64GB models. There’s no official word on Australian pricing although BlackBerrystore.com.au is taking orders for $696. I expect the official local pricing ot come in lower.

At $696 the 16GB Playbook is a little pricey but that’s easily forgotten when you get your hands on it. It’s a delight to hold, weighing in at a mere 400gm and only 9.7mm thick.

The black button-less styling adds to the slimming effect and this sleek tablet certainly has a touch of elegance about it. The Playbook comes with a felt-lined soft cover which would easily slip into a small bag or perhaps even a large jacket pocket. There are two $68 cases listed on that BlackBerry store website - one is a journal-like leather case and the other converts into a stand.

The Playbook sports a bright 7-inch LCD 1024x600 display with bright whites, great contrast and decent viewing angles. Under the bonnet you’ll find a dual-core 1GHz ARM Cortex power plant accompanied by 1GB of RAM, so it’s not short on grunt. There’s a 3 MP webcam embedded in the bezel (at the top in landscape mode), with a second 5 MP camera on the back. Discrete speakers are embedded on either side of the bezel.