BlackBerry Fans Now Have A Tablet Of Their Own
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BlackBerry devotees who have been waiting for a tablet all their own now have a tablet that they may truly prefer over an iPad or any other kind of tablet out there. NY1's Technology reporter Adam Balkin filed the following report. Research in Motion, the company that introduced and then popularized the mini-keyboard, decided the face of its Blackberry Playbook tablet would be entirely gesture-based and not have a single thing to physically depress.
Strangely, at its launch the device will not have its own BlackBerry-like email and calendar applications, but only Web-based ones like Gmail. However, the Playbook will soon have an app called "BlackBerry Bridge" for wirelessly and securely linking to a BlackBerry phone.
"So you've got your email, your tasks, your notes, your calendar, your [BlackBerry Messenger] all on the big screen, so now you're not kind of worried about opening that document or looking at that spreadsheet all on the little screen. You've got it here on this big seven-inch tablet," says Ryan Bidan of Research in Motion. "We've built a really powerful platform, as well to bring a multitasking operating system that allows you to do lots of different tasks simultaneously. So you can surf the Web while playing a game while outputting an HD movie."
As for apps, RIM says the Playbook has around 3,000 available at its launch, and it will have an app player for running certain Android apps.
Any time a new tablet comes out, journalists and analysts wonder if it will be real competition for the iPad. With the Blackberry Playbook, some are saying it does not really need to compete with the iPad.
"Corporate users are going to stick with BlackBerry because they love their email, they love the security. So that's really going to be their target market," says Suzanne Kantra of Techlicious.com. "It is not going to be a mainstream device that's going to go head to head with Android tablets and iPads."
The Blackberry Playbook is out this week and costs between $500 and $700, depending on how much storage it has. Although it has no wireless data service plans available yet and is Wi-Fi only, unlike most other tablets it does offer free wireless tethering to BlackBerry phones in order to get online that way.