BLACKBERRY PLAYBOOK 16GB

The new offering by Research In Motion (RIM) codename Blackberry Playbook has arrived the country. It is much awaited locally even in fact the Playbook is not another android based tablet. The overwhelming tablet trend is giving a strong message to RIM, and somehow, they are a little late behind other manufacturers. Despite the lag, RIM finally has released the Blackberry Playbook, using their own new Blackberry OS, which reported will be used to power future Blackberry smartphones too.
The Blackberry Playbook, unlike the Samsung Tab is a tablet that has no support for GSM voice communication, such as the 2G and 3G network. Therefor it is solely a 7” tablet that has limited capability being a stand-alone device unless being connected through its WiFi.  What a bummer! It weigh around half a kg, with TFT capacitive touch screen capable of multi-touch input and auto rotate at 600 x 1024 pixels. The Playbook is offered in three sizes of storage, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. The Playbook is also equipped with Bluetooth, a primary and secondary webcams with 5 MP and 3 MP respectively and 1080p HD video playback capability.

Physically, the Playbook 16GB with only 10mm thickness is simple and robust. It is easier to handle, since it is only half a kg, and less prone to slip and slides due to the rubberize material on the outer casing. However, it is widely known that this rubbery material tend to give in and worn in time, making the Playbook the exhausted and tattered look. On the outer side of the screen, are the sensors for swiping inputs, which is very handy and genius. Power button is place at the top of the device near the media control buttons while RIM had placed a pair of speakers on the sides of the screen.

Like the Blackberry Smartphone OS, the provided tablet OS is fast and easy to understand. They are very responsive to the swiping and touch. Synchronizing the Blackberry Playbook and Blackberry hand phones is pretty simple and by doing this, we can use the Playbook for internet browsing which is surely more pleasant and easier to the eye and hands. The Playbook 16GB has a great battery life which is usually more than 6 hours depending on settings and usage scenarios. This is an awesome performance for RIM’s first attempt on the tablet market. The Playbook which is powered by 1GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU and PowerVR SGX540 GPU on TI OMAP 4430 chipset manage to handle multi-tasking duties too. These hardware and Blackberry OS combination proven to be less power-hungry and yet, delivering performance matching to RIM’s Blackberry Torch.

On the other hand, it might be useful of having a Playbook while having a Blackberry smartphones, since they both can cooperate with each other, but it is also kind of extra burden. What’s the use of having the Playbook, when you can do almost anything that Playbook can do with your Blackberry Smart phone? Yes, maybe for that little extra here and there; large display, easier for the hands and eye, larger display,  extra pouch (to keep your Playbook), larger display, extra 0.5kg burden, larger display… oh, a working WiFi!