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Originally posted on MacLife.com.
In case you missed it on Wednesday night, the embargo was lifted on early reviews for Research in Motion’s first tablet device, the BlackBerry PlayBook. A veritable flood of reviews hit the web for the device, which debuts on Tuesday, April 19 -- but it’s off to a bit of a rocky start so far.
AppleInsider has collected some of the most prominent BlackBerry PlayBook reviews around the internet, and it’s kind of a good news, bad news scenario for Research in Motion on their first time at bat in the tablet world. While the seven-inch hardware is given mostly praise, the software running it appears to be unfinished and as widely reported in recent months, even completely lacking in critical areas such as email, calendar and contacts.
The New York Times’ David Pogue didn’t dance around the subject of what was wrong with the PlayBook, exclaiming “R.I.M. just shipped a BlackBerry product that cannot do email. It must be skating season in hell.” He also summed up the rather significant hurdle that RIM faces with potential buyers: "Remember, the primary competition is an iPad -- the same price, but much thinner, much bigger screen and a library of 300,000 apps. In that light, does it make sense to buy a fledgling tablet with no built-in e-mail or calendar, no cellular connection, no videochat, no Skype, no Notes app, no GPS app, no videochat, no Pandora radio and no Angry Birds?"
Walt Mossberg at The Wall Street Journal was a bit kinder to the PlayBook, but called it “a tablet with a case of codependency” since a BlackBerry handset is (at least for now) required to do email, calendar and contacts on the tablet. "In my view, even though Bridge is a neat technical feat, it makes the PlayBook a companion to a BlackBerry phone rather than a fully independent device," Mossberg stated.
The news for RIM isn’t all bad, however. Bloomberg’s Rich Jaroslovsky praised the PlayBook’s form factor and battery life, even going so far as to say the tablet could very well put RIM back in the game. “Who would have thought that the maker of some of the world’s least exciting smartphones would have produced a product this slick?" Jaroslovsky concluded. "The PlayBook makes BlackBerry relevant again."
Now that the critics have spoken, all eyes will be on the retailers come Tuesday, April 19 as the BlackBerry PlayBook lands in stores nationwide in a Wi-Fi only edition matching the iPad 2 pricing and configurations by starting at $499 for 16GB.
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
(Image courtesy of AppleInsider)
Comments are closed on this article
Eva Grainy
July 11, 2011 at 7:38am
All these contemporary gadgets come as a wonderful aid for the modern man. But then again, there has been built a halo around them according to which we all relate to a higher step of performance. As far as the reviews are concerned, there is more than a file extension software system to it. It takes the most refined technological tools to build these little machines of the future. Software, related to this topic, appears as a masterpiece statue of technology always in need for redefining lines.
bowei006
April 15, 2011 at 8:40am
now that apple has won the spec war this year dominating every tablet in specs and in user interface... nobody flaunts their awesome tegra 2's and apple gets no credit other than the few ppl that read a lo of tablet news and have seen the benchmarks that pwned the Tegra 2 on the xoom. Playbook may you rest in peace.RIP
Ghok
April 14, 2011 at 11:06am
I hope this takes off, at least here in Canada where Blackberrys are very popular. Because I'd like to see it live to see the next version.
I'm not overly interested, but it sounds like most of these new tablets coming out need another cycle before they can become true competition to Apple, and we all need that desperatly before they become better devices.
Dantv
April 14, 2011 at 11:03am
I've spent over $100 on iOS apps and so have many others. We are as likely to switch platforms as people like my self that use Windows on the desktop... The app investment is there for both platforms and that's where I'm staying. Not switching to the Johnny come lately platform!
