Blackberry Playbook
- Thread starter codedivine
- Start date
Before I decided on getting an iPad 2, I couldn't imagine a tablet being of much use to me at all.
Now, with all these videos of amazing Playbook demonstrations, I'm having a hard time stopping myself from believing I have a real need for another, smaller tablet in addition to my first tablet.
Ack, gadget lust. That Playbook multitasking UI coupled with the graphics and video hardware is compelling me.
Now, with all these videos of amazing Playbook demonstrations, I'm having a hard time stopping myself from believing I have a real need for another, smaller tablet in addition to my first tablet.
Ack, gadget lust. That Playbook multitasking UI coupled with the graphics and video hardware is compelling me.
I can have email on a Playbook either through my Blackberry or through the web browser, since I only use webmail. There will most likely be a multitude of mail applications.
My reasons for wanting the Playbook:
1. looks like a good piece of hardware
2. OS and interface look nice
3. I like the portability. iPad is bigger than what I want. Playbook is maybe too small, but I'll see. Maybe the magic number for me is in the 8.5" range, but the iPad is not the form factor I want.
4. Full featured web browser with flash support
5. I have friends that work at RIM
6. support the last Canadian tech giant (buy local)
7. leverages the Blackberry I own. iPhone was never an option on this network
8. Not worried about app support. It will come over time, even though they'll remain significantly behind in the raw number of apps available. Any new players are going to be at a disadvantage in this area.
9. Not interested in being locked into Apple's ecosystem on a computing device. I know you can get around it with jailbreak etc, but I'd prefer not to do that. My growing dislike of Apple and their policies regarding content ownership and distribution make me want to stay away from their iOS products.
10. May be easier for me to write apps and compete in the marketplace because of fewer players
11. Hmmmmm ... Support the underdog, the competition or something like that?
12. I got a bonus and I'm irresponsible with my money
A windows tablet might be very nice, actually, but I'm looking to try something different. I'm a big Google user, but for some reason I've never had an interest in the Android devices. Seems to Linuxy for my tastes.
Native email client in the first 60 days:
http://crackberry.com/native-email-and-apps-coming-blackberry-playbook-60-days
http://crackberry.com/native-email-and-apps-coming-blackberry-playbook-60-days
When Windows (8) runs for 10+ hours with a finger-intuitive interface like the Playbook, WebOS or even iOS then I will definitely want one. It's going to be fun these next five years as Windows and x86 push down and ARM (OMAP, etc.) + the tablet OSes push UP.
Competition will be awesome.
BTW, why are you so uptight about Windows?
Windows is for GAMES!
(and 3D CAD)
and no tablet is going to play Crysis (not 2, but the real one) at acceptable performance any time soon!
Linux and OSX are for work
some good reasons. You should know that one of the companys is making a 8 inch andriod tablet
everyone is shiiting up the single windows tablet thread with ipad and andriod info that i thought i'd share the pain with the black berry people.
Btw i would never use an apple product at work. I want to set the 50 imacs we have in the school district on fire . I've never seen such pos machines in my life they are allways breaking down
...one of the reasons is shown by that video: Interface. Flash sites are just not made for a finger interface, there are a number of very tiny elements he has to navigate in that video that aren't condusive to finger manipulation.
you just need some better IT people. I have a mixture of XP, Vista , Linux and OSX machines and the latter two a basically maintenance free. My own main work machine is a MacBook pro running OSX with a Linux vm and an XP vm. The XP vm runs off my windows partition so any changes I make are there when I boot into game mode. I have apps under OSX that run circles around their much more expensive windows equivalents.
Maybe your can't handle OSX IT people need to learn a little unix and learn how to set up there users correctly? How one manages to "break down" any version of unix when IT has a clue is beyond me. The only routinely buggy software I have on OSX is office 2011 which is just as buggy on my W7 machines in the 2010 flavor.
If it weren't for things like Autodesk and Unigraphics, W7 would be a purely gaming OS for me.
and yet he didn't have much trouble doing it, but if you're that gimped you can always buy a pen.
Your projector doesn't give its resolution automatically? What is it, 20 years old? Fwiw I've hooked mine to virtually everything without ever a hiccup.
So, I took the irresponsible and ill-advised plunge. I guess that's what getting a bonus at work can do to you. I'll post some impressions later, but I did have some time to toy with the demo unit in the story. Not much I can say, because the store didn't have wi-fi and the unit was strapped to a desk. The screen is really really nice. The pixel density makes the preloaded photos look gorgeous. The way the unit was strapped down, I couldn't really point the camera at anything other than the table it was on. When I've had some time to mess with it, I'll give my impressions, and I can answer whatever questions you guys might have. There were quite a few people in the store looking at it, and asking about pricing/stock. They had the smaller 16GB in stock, but all of the larger capacities were pre-orders. While it wasn't exactly busting down the doors, there did seem to be some interest.
Posting this reply from my playbook. Thumb typing is doable even in landscape mode. The camera is decent although it isn't exactly rapid fire. The stereo speakers are a nice touch.
Getting setup is really easy, just fire it up and connect to wifi, it installed the new OS (which took about 10 minutes as it was quite large). It walks you through a couple of basic tutorials and you're off. I haven't even taken the cables out of the box yet.
I'll post more impressions later.
Getting setup is really easy, just fire it up and connect to wifi, it installed the new OS (which took about 10 minutes as it was quite large). It walks you through a couple of basic tutorials and you're off. I haven't even taken the cables out of the box yet.
I'll post more impressions later.
So far so good. Responding with my playbook right now. Two thumb typing in landscape works really well. Pages load quick and switching between tabs is fast. swipe down from the top bezel to drop down the menu bar with tab thumbnails and tap on the one you want. They stay loaded in the background.
Portrait mode is a little small to read unless you zoom in the page a bit but the two thumb typing works really well. So far a very good typing experience for a touch keyboard. I like the size of this thing, but wish web pages were a little more readable zoomed out in portrait orientation.
Copy and paste is really easy. You just hold your finger on the text box for a second and two markers appear on the screen as well as buttons for copy and cancel. You just drag the markers to encapsulate the text and click copy.
If you double tap inside a text box it will zoom the screen in to fit that element by width. The same works for other elements like pictures and text.
You can disable flash and javascript in the browser settings.
Netflix web streaming does not work because there is no Silverlight support. Not sure if there is a way around that. How do they stream on iPad? Have to wait for an app I guess.
The test video it comes with looks very very good. This this has a great bright screen.
