This review is from: BlackBerry PlayBook – Tablet – 64 GB – 7″ TFT ( 1024 x 600 ) – rear camera + front camera – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth (Personal Computers)
This is a great 7 inch tablet, had it a few weeks now, plenty of apps if your an app head then there isn’t as many as the ipad app selection, to me there are more than enough, i bought it to surf the net, use my email, watch the odd film(very smooth and great quality picture), and listen to music and watch you-tube video(extremely fast and smooth operation btw), with the odd app thrown in, so it covers all my bases and does everything i need perfectly, its been updated to version 2.1(very easy to do), and i really cannot fault it, the way everything works is very good and smooth with no problems so far, only took me a short time to go through everything i needed to configure, email, IM etc, i use the IM+ app to use my yahoo messenger on it, works flawlessly, these are going very cheep if you look around and worth every penny, i got my one for £129 and at that price you can get 4 of these for the price of one 64gb ipad3, its a no brainer to me, there is the new kindle firehd but this will cost you more and you cannot get a 64gb version and the playbook is easily as good as the fire, probably better considering the playbook 64gb used to retail for £550, a real sturdy well made quality product, you wont be disappointed, and if you want 10 billion apps, 10000 of which are very similar in each category then go for an ipad and pay 4 times the price, personally i like the 7 inch screen and the playbook store has plenty of apps for me, perfect for my use, highly recommended.
Performance, Cameras 9/10. OS 10/10. screen 10/10. sound 10/10. headphone sound 11/10 very good and i’m fussy about this. apps 7/10 for app addicts, 10/10 for ordinary folk. you tube video playback 10/10. battery 9/10 would be 10 but no device ever has enough battery, it was left on standby with wifi switched on and checking emails a few times a day, still had over 80% after 4 days from 100% charge, that will do me. storage 10/10 64gb is brilliant, plenty for most people. touch screen response and pinch to zoom etc 10/10. internet browsing and flash playback is spot on, 10/10. music player 10/10 charge time 8/10 there is a fast charger available, just leave it on charge at bed time and it is 100% by get up time. build quality 11/10, very sturdy, feels quality and looks great. multitasking 11/10, true multitasking, better than ipad 3 imo as reference.
well that’s my opinion and i hope it help you decide what tablet to spend your hard earned on, i didn’t think twice about this one after checking it out for a few hours online reading reviews and considering the price i could get one from at a certain well known computer shop, and check out the playbook tips and trick video’s on you-tube to get you up and running quickly if you end up buying one of these great tablets, I’m well happy with mine.
ps, i find it amazing you can get something this good for £129(look around), considering i bought a 4gb memory card a few years ago and that alone cost me over £90.
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This review is from: BlackBerry PlayBook – Tablet – 64 GB – 7″ TFT ( 1024 x 600 ) – rear camera + front camera – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth (Personal Computers)
First a quick shot of context. I work with technology and test products for business suitability. I love Android for its open standards and I like IOS as an innovative technology despite disliking its proprietary stance. Both struggle as viable everyday business tools.
In the last years I have become increasingly disenchanted with RIM, the manufacturers of Blackberry devices and this Playbook. Despite a wider range of Blackberry products, finding a single one that covers each of the smartphone basics well, is hard. They have so far done a woeful job of producing a workable touchscreen device. The clunky, crash prone Torch being the best.
So we come to the Blackberry Playbook, RIM’s Wifi and Bluetooth only, non upgradeable, 7″ touchscreen tablet that runs the all new (to RIM) QNX OS. I wasn’t expecting much I have to say, perhaps something along the lines of the Storm, which had some great ideas wrapped in an unworkable concept. I was loaned a Playbook for two weeks by T-Mobile and the surprise when I actually got to using it, despite a few obvious limitations, was that it’s beautifully slick and a very usable device indeed. It works extremely well as a standalone touchscreen with incredible multi-tasking and is a great tool for anyone that ever wished their Blackberry had a bigger screen. There are caveats I will touch on, but if you’re looking for me to tell you its rubbish and not to buy one, I honestly cannot. It’s actually really rather good. My advise would to be buy the one with the biggest amount of internal storage you can afford. That is the only difference between the different models as they cannot be upgraded with additional storage once you have them.
So what’s the playbook like? For a start it does not run the Blackberry OS, it runs the QNX OS, which is a brand new engine and interface that will eventually be used across all RIM devices. QNX is legacy technology that has proven to be extremely efficient and it is no different here. The interface is super slick, with running apps displayed on screen in a horizontally rolling card file of windows that show live information. So if you’re watching a movie for instance and come back to the menu, the movie will continue playing in a window as you flick through your open apps. Displayed in this way the open apps are similar in style but more dynamic than the widgets you find in Android devices. It is only when you actually select and start using a app in fullscreen that the others drop back, and in this example, the video would pause.
Internet browsing on this is a real dream. Contempory to Apple IOS devices except it fully supports Flash and pages load (given internet connection speeds) very fast. There is none of the slow page builds or unresponsiveness you sometimes get in Android. I watched iPlayer and other online content with no issues and easily browsed busy media intense pages. I did occasionally find Flash content would not play and suspect this is a Flash version issue at the source website that will be better handled by RIM in the future.
Because QNX is a new OS then NONE of the existing Blackberry Apps will work on it. Any app that will run on the Playbook has to be written for the Playbook. And while there is talk of supporting Android apps via emulation this is not available yet. The upshot is there’s a real shortage of apps right now, but I would expect this to change in the next 6 to 12 months. The Playbook does come with a broad selection of apps that cover most of the core touchscreen requirements, this includes newsreaders, PDF, Word and Excel editors that work well. The lack of apps means there is not the diversity of choice and some of the useful paid for apps like Logmein are not yet available. That will probably be a show stopper for some.
So can you ditch your Blackberry in favour of the Playbook? Unfortunately not. RIM simply haven’t had time to port their core Blackberry functionality into the new QNX OS. That may still be two years away. Essentially you still need a Blackberry to receive and send your Blackberry connected services such as email, browse the internet while on the move and the all important Blackberry Messenger. What you do have in the meantime is a virtual bluetooth connection from your Playbook to your Blackberry. This is extremely easy to setup and works very well. You can keep your Blackberry in your bag and read, reply, send and even browse your Enterprise intranet from your Playbook (if your company is Blackberry enterprise enabled.) This last especially is a big win and offers huge potential for business users. Demonstrating this alone to senior execs gets them slack jawed and dizzy at the prospect of not having to squint at the BB screen for Reuters and real time internal corporate data. This virtual connection to the Blackberry works well although sometimes it did stop updating and a list of unread emails were not displayed on the…
This review is from: BlackBerry PlayBook – Tablet – 64 GB – 7″ TFT ( 1024 x 600 ) – rear camera + front camera – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth (Personal Computers)
I have had my Playbook a week and I love it. The screen is amazingly clear and I have watched a couple of videos on it so far. The one issue I had was that I could not download Blackberry Bridge software to my smartphone no matter what I tried – so I could not use is as a netbook away from a wifi hot spot. Contacted my service provider (Vodafone) but with absolutely no help from them.
Eventually I found a similar problem being discussed in a forum and the solution was SO SIMPLE that I wanted to share it with anyone having similar problems. If your Paypal-linked email and your Blackberry-linked email addresses are different Blackberry App World won’t work. It doesn’t tell you why. You just get error messages saying that the application is not available.
Here is the solution. Create another Blackberry ID using the same email address as your Paypal account. Problem solved!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Playbook 64gb,
This is a great 7 inch tablet, had it a few weeks now, plenty of apps if your an app head then there isn’t as many as the ipad app selection, to me there are more than enough, i bought it to surf the net, use my email, watch the odd film(very smooth and great quality picture), and listen to music and watch you-tube video(extremely fast and smooth operation btw), with the odd app thrown in, so it covers all my bases and does everything i need perfectly, its been updated to version 2.1(very easy to do), and i really cannot fault it, the way everything works is very good and smooth with no problems so far, only took me a short time to go through everything i needed to configure, email, IM etc, i use the IM+ app to use my yahoo messenger on it, works flawlessly, these are going very cheep if you look around and worth every penny, i got my one for £129 and at that price you can get 4 of these for the price of one 64gb ipad3, its a no brainer to me, there is the new kindle firehd but this will cost you more and you cannot get a 64gb version and the playbook is easily as good as the fire, probably better considering the playbook 64gb used to retail for £550, a real sturdy well made quality product, you wont be disappointed, and if you want 10 billion apps, 10000 of which are very similar in each category then go for an ipad and pay 4 times the price, personally i like the 7 inch screen and the playbook store has plenty of apps for me, perfect for my use, highly recommended.
Performance,
Cameras 9/10.
OS 10/10.
screen 10/10.
sound 10/10.
headphone sound 11/10 very good and i’m fussy about this.
apps 7/10 for app addicts, 10/10 for ordinary folk.
you tube video playback 10/10.
battery 9/10 would be 10 but no device ever has enough battery, it was left on standby with wifi switched on and checking emails a few times a day, still had over 80% after 4 days from 100% charge, that will do me.
storage 10/10 64gb is brilliant, plenty for most people.
touch screen response and pinch to zoom etc 10/10.
internet browsing and flash playback is spot on, 10/10.
music player 10/10
charge time 8/10 there is a fast charger available, just leave it on charge at bed time and it is 100% by get up time.
build quality 11/10, very sturdy, feels quality and looks great.
multitasking 11/10, true multitasking, better than ipad 3 imo as reference.
well that’s my opinion and i hope it help you decide what tablet to spend your hard earned on, i didn’t think twice about this one after checking it out for a few hours online reading reviews and considering the price i could get one from at a certain well known computer shop, and check out the playbook tips and trick video’s on you-tube to get you up and running quickly if you end up buying one of these great tablets, I’m well happy with mine.
ps, i find it amazing you can get something this good for £129(look around), considering i bought a 4gb memory card a few years ago and that alone cost me over £90.
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|The future is bright if the Playbook is a sign of times to come,
First a quick shot of context. I work with technology and test products for business suitability. I love Android for its open standards and I like IOS as an innovative technology despite disliking its proprietary stance. Both struggle as viable everyday business tools.
In the last years I have become increasingly disenchanted with RIM, the manufacturers of Blackberry devices and this Playbook. Despite a wider range of Blackberry products, finding a single one that covers each of the smartphone basics well, is hard. They have so far done a woeful job of producing a workable touchscreen device. The clunky, crash prone Torch being the best.
So we come to the Blackberry Playbook, RIM’s Wifi and Bluetooth only, non upgradeable, 7″ touchscreen tablet that runs the all new (to RIM) QNX OS. I wasn’t expecting much I have to say, perhaps something along the lines of the Storm, which had some great ideas wrapped in an unworkable concept. I was loaned a Playbook for two weeks by T-Mobile and the surprise when I actually got to using it, despite a few obvious limitations, was that it’s beautifully slick and a very usable device indeed. It works extremely well as a standalone touchscreen with incredible multi-tasking and is a great tool for anyone that ever wished their Blackberry had a bigger screen. There are caveats I will touch on, but if you’re looking for me to tell you its rubbish and not to buy one, I honestly cannot. It’s actually really rather good. My advise would to be buy the one with the biggest amount of internal storage you can afford. That is the only difference between the different models as they cannot be upgraded with additional storage once you have them.
So what’s the playbook like? For a start it does not run the Blackberry OS, it runs the QNX OS, which is a brand new engine and interface that will eventually be used across all RIM devices. QNX is legacy technology that has proven to be extremely efficient and it is no different here. The interface is super slick, with running apps displayed on screen in a horizontally rolling card file of windows that show live information. So if you’re watching a movie for instance and come back to the menu, the movie will continue playing in a window as you flick through your open apps. Displayed in this way the open apps are similar in style but more dynamic than the widgets you find in Android devices. It is only when you actually select and start using a app in fullscreen that the others drop back, and in this example, the video would pause.
Internet browsing on this is a real dream. Contempory to Apple IOS devices except it fully supports Flash and pages load (given internet connection speeds) very fast. There is none of the slow page builds or unresponsiveness you sometimes get in Android. I watched iPlayer and other online content with no issues and easily browsed busy media intense pages. I did occasionally find Flash content would not play and suspect this is a Flash version issue at the source website that will be better handled by RIM in the future.
Because QNX is a new OS then NONE of the existing Blackberry Apps will work on it. Any app that will run on the Playbook has to be written for the Playbook. And while there is talk of supporting Android apps via emulation this is not available yet. The upshot is there’s a real shortage of apps right now, but I would expect this to change in the next 6 to 12 months. The Playbook does come with a broad selection of apps that cover most of the core touchscreen requirements, this includes newsreaders, PDF, Word and Excel editors that work well. The lack of apps means there is not the diversity of choice and some of the useful paid for apps like Logmein are not yet available. That will probably be a show stopper for some.
So can you ditch your Blackberry in favour of the Playbook? Unfortunately not. RIM simply haven’t had time to port their core Blackberry functionality into the new QNX OS. That may still be two years away. Essentially you still need a Blackberry to receive and send your Blackberry connected services such as email, browse the internet while on the move and the all important Blackberry Messenger. What you do have in the meantime is a virtual bluetooth connection from your Playbook to your Blackberry. This is extremely easy to setup and works very well. You can keep your Blackberry in your bag and read, reply, send and even browse your Enterprise intranet from your Playbook (if your company is Blackberry enterprise enabled.) This last especially is a big win and offers huge potential for business users. Demonstrating this alone to senior execs gets them slack jawed and dizzy at the prospect of not having to squint at the BB screen for Reuters and real time internal corporate data. This virtual connection to the Blackberry works well although sometimes it did stop updating and a list of unread emails were not displayed on the…
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|Great device but you need to know about this potential problem,
I have had my Playbook a week and I love it. The screen is amazingly clear and I have watched a couple of videos on it so far. The one issue I had was that I could not download Blackberry Bridge software to my smartphone no matter what I tried – so I could not use is as a netbook away from a wifi hot spot. Contacted my service provider (Vodafone) but with absolutely no help from them.
Eventually I found a similar problem being discussed in a forum and the solution was SO SIMPLE that I wanted to share it with anyone having similar problems. If your Paypal-linked email and your Blackberry-linked email addresses are different Blackberry App World won’t work. It doesn’t tell you why. You just get error messages saying that the application is not available.
Here is the solution. Create another Blackberry ID using the same email address as your Paypal account. Problem solved!
Was this review helpful to you?
|