BlackBerry PlayBook 16GB Wi-Fi 7-inch Tablet PC

May 3 2011 - Research In Motions BlackBerry PlayBook has some excellent features in a compact package but its software implementation is just too incomplete for it to really be a strong choice for most users. If you happen to use a BlackBerry phone, some of these deficiencies are negated but it requires two devices what can be done with just a single other tablet. Video performance was especially surprising from the PlayBook but this probably won't be the primary function that most people would be buying the tablet for. As a result, it is best to wait for future updates before committing to this tablet unless you happen to be a corporate user that also has a BlackBerry phone.

May 3 2011 - Research in Motion decided to go with a more compact route for the BlackBerry Playbook by using a more compact 7-inch screen compared to the popular 10-inch display. This makes the system much more compact that the iPad 2 or the plethora of 10-inch Android tablets. It is slightly thicker than the iPad 2 but feels just as solid. The .9 pound is very welcome for anyone who has to hold the tablet for long periods of time.

The smaller display size does have its drawbacks. For one, it has a more limited 1024x600 display resolution which does limit the amount of a webpage that can be displayed on the tablet. Similarly, when the virtual keyboard is used, well over half of the display in the landscape mode is used up by the keyboard. The smaller size does allow two thumb typing to be done but you will have to dig down further to get numbers and special characters which can slow down typing.

Viewing angles for the display are quite good and it does an excellent job with video playback in particular. The PowerVR SGX graphics engine can offload much of the video processing from the 1GHz dual core processor which helps with its battery life somewhat and allows the tablet to provide a full 1080p video output via the micro-HDMI output to an HDTV while still allowing the tablet to be used for other tasks. It isn't quite as powerful as Apple's PowerVR graphics but still is quite capable thanks to the OS. Flash users should also be happy to learn that 10.1 is fully supported for smooth embedded video support.

The BlackBerry Tablet OS is powered by the QNX kernel. This provides it with a very solid background task management. In terms of functionality, BlackBerry has done an excellent job of building it for multitasking with intuitive gestures for navigating and switching between apps. Transitions between applications are smooth with very little delay. The downside is that the software package isn't quite complete. Several announced features still haven't been implemented.

The biggest omission from the software is email, calender and contacts functions that are pretty much standard fare for tablets. If you want to use email currently, you are stuck with using a BlackBerry Bridge to tie into a BlackBerry smart phone for use with its software features. While this works, it seems to eat up a lot of memory and isn't as well developed as the rest of the OS. Another big feature that is not implemented yet is the supposed compatibility with Android based applications. There are to be added at a later date but until they are the software experience is missing a lot.

One surprising aspect of the PlayBook are the cameras. While most tablets use a 2 megapixel camera on the front, the PlayBook comes with a higher 3.0 megapixel unit. On the front of the tablet is a 5 megapixel image sensor that seems to be typical of most tablets. In usage, they seemed to do a good job including rendering 1080 video from the front camera. It should be noted that performance will drop off significantly unless there is a good amount of light and there are no LED flashes on the tablet.

With the more compact tablet design of the BlackBerry Playbook, it obviously can't pack as large of a battery pack as the larger 10-inch tablets. In video playback testing with a standard definition video file, the PlayBook was able to run four roughly seven and a quarter hours. This puts it three hours behind the iPad 2 in terms of running time but it will probably be plenty for most users for a days worth of use.