Thursday 20 January 2011

Blackberry Playbook: What we know

Everything we know about Blackberry's soon to be released Playbook tablet

The Blackberry playbook is said to be the fastest tablet PC to date.

By Hunter Skipworth 12:32PM GMT 22 Dec 2010

Details surrounding the Blackberry Playbook remain somewhat unclear, with any demonstrations of the tablet being made with the device encased in a glass box.

Few are yet to put the device through its paces and a solid release date is still to be made. There are however several things which we do know for certain about the device.

The QNX operating system:

The Playbook is to make use of a newly designed QNX OS. Given RIM's history of producing stable and secure operating systems it will undoubtedly impress. Early demonstrations of the OS known as QNX Neutrino show one capable of multi-tasking and multi-core processing.

The OS is also said to be capable of running Flash 10.1 and HTML 5 allowing a complete web browsing experience. The Playbook is also capable of pairing with any other Blackberry smartphone running software V5 or higher and sharing information between devices.

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The Hardware:

According to Blackberry's website the Playbook is set to be the fastest tablet yet. It houses a dual-core 1GHZ processor and 1GB of RAM. This should allow the tablet to process some pretty graphic intensive applications as well as high resolution video. The tablet has already been shown playing 1080p footage without problems.

Dual cameras will allow video conferencing to take place on the device in a similar fashion to that of the iPhone 4's FaceTime.

The 7" screen is said to be multi-touch capable and full HD.

The Release Date:

Blackberry are yet to announce exactly when the Playbook will be available. However the official copmany website has a an in depth page on the tablet.

Price:

It is unclear yet as to how much the device will cost. Given Apple's tradition as a somewhat premium product and the success of the iPad in its current price range, it is unlikely that Blackberry will engage in a pricing war with Apple. However the tablet itself doesn't have a 3G connection, so potential buyers could see a discount when bought alongside a Blackberry smartphone.