Research In Motion hopes its upcoming PlayBook tablet can carve a place for
itself in the burgeoning tablet market. It certainly faces some tough
competition in that quest, from not only the Apple iPad but also from a growing
number of Android-based devices.
But RIM’s 7-inch tablet possesses some distinct advantages, at least based
on a few minutes playing with the device at the just-concluded Consumer
Electronics Show in Las Vegas. For
business users who already own a BlackBerry device, the PlayBook’s tethering
abilities offer the prospect of a value-add, at least for those power users who
want to sort through their deluge of messages and calendar appointments on a
larger screen. Presumably, RIM will also maintain its high security standards
with the device, which could appeal to government users and other danger-minded
folks concerned about vulnerabilities in iOS or Android.
At the PlayBook’s heart is a 1GHz dual-core processor paired with 1GB of RAM.
While eWEEK wasn’t given nearly enough time to thoroughly test the PlayBook at
CES, the device seemed powerful enough to multitask a handful of applications
without a stutter, including a game (Quake, which started out a decade ago as a
shoot-’em-up for full-size desktops) and Web browsing simultaneously. The PlayBook
offers full HTML5 and Adobe Flash 10.1 support, the latter of which is quickly
becoming one of the competitive differentiators by which all other tablet
manufacturers try to set their devices apart from the iPad.
For more, read the eWeek article: RIM’s PlayBook Offers BlackBerry Tethering, Multitasking, Sleek OS.
