By Rishabh Prasad:
The “Evolved Slates”, also known as Tablets, have already become hot hunks in the market. Almost every firm seems to be aiming to come up with one of its own kind. With companies like Apple, Dell, Samsung, Cisco, Panasonic and HTC already battling in the market, RIM (Research in Motion) enters the tablet business with the BlackBerry PlayBook. At Research in Motion’s annual BlackBerry Developer Conference, CEO Mike Lazardis announced the company’s new tablet – the PlayBook.
RIM claims its tablet to be the first multiprocessing, multitasking, uncompromised browsing, enterprise ready professional grade-tablet. The tablet has an OS created by the QNX(a commercial Unix-like real-time operating system) called the BlackBerry Tablet OS which will offer full OpenGL and POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface) support alongside web standards such as HTML5. As a microkernel-based OS, QNX is based on the idea of running most of the OS in the form of a number of small tasks, known as servers. The use of a microkernel allows users (developers) to turn off any functionality they do not require without having to change the OS itself; instead, those servers are simply not run.
RIM says that PlayBook is ideal for games, media, apps and everything the real Internet offers. It has the Adobe Flash 10.1 enabled and a beautiful rendering of text, graphics and video. If portability and convenience is judged then it has a 7″ LCD display, a 1024 x 600 screen resolution, a multi-touch capacitive screen, and a built-in micro USB connector and weighs just 400 grams. It has a symmetric dual-core 1GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a 3 megapixel front-facing camera along with a 5 megapixel rear lens. The company says that it has video conferencing capability with a crystal clear HD display and rich stereo sound. The PlayBook has an out-of-the-box compatibility with BlackBerry Enterprise Server. It also has 3G access via existing BlackBerry smartphone service plan.
The device might seem like a winner at first but the competition it is about to enter is much tougher than it seems. RIM is offering a 7” display but it is not much if compared to Apple iPad’s 9.7” display. RIM needs to fully determine which market it wants to exploit and focus all of its efforts there. Although the company said that the PlayBook is for corporate users, it also showed how it handles pictures and allows users to enjoy entertainment—two things that most companies don’t want their employees to engage in during the workday.
The specifications can be briefed as:-
- 7-inch LCD, 1024 x 600, WSVGA, capacitive touch screen with full multi-touch and gesture support
- BlackBerry Tablet OS with support for symmetric multiprocessing
- 1 GHz dual-core processor
- 1 GB RAM
- Dual HD cameras (3 MP front facing, 5 MP rear facing), supports 1080p HD video recording
- Video playback: 1080p HD Video, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV
- Audio playback: MP3, AAC, WMA
- HDMI video output
- Wi-Fi – 802.11 a/b/g/n
- Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
- Connectors: micro HDMI, micro USB, charging contacts
- Open, flexible application platform with support for WebKit/HTML-5, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile AIR, Adobe Reader, POSIX, OpenGL, Java
- Ultra thin and portable:
- Measures 5.1″x7.6″x0.4″ (130mm x 193mm x 10mm)
- Weighs less than a pound (approximately 0.9 lb or 400g)
Now let’s wait and watch what this smartphone giant does in this totally new arena. The Playbook is certainly one of the most innovative moves by RIM. A must watch is the video demo of the Playbook below. [If you are unable to see the video, click here].