There’s a thirst for a legitimate iPad alternative. There are, it’s fair to say, decent alternatives to the iPhone, that do more or less everything you want. In terms of an iPad alternative though, there isn’t much that can stand up and be compared in the same light. The Galaxy Tab came close, but the extra phone feature and the sky high price point has meant we’ve all lost interest pretty quickly.
The BlackBerry PlayBook is one of the few tablets currently promised that has a chance. It’s a different form factor than the iPad, with a seven inch screen. It’s got HTML 5 and Flash support, tethering to BlackBerry smartphone, front and rear cameras, and claims to be the fastest tablet ever. Plus, it’s cheap. It might even be stupidly cheap.
The BlackBerry Playbook pricing seems far to cheap to be true. Leaked prices set the starting price for an 8GB PlayBook (there will also be 16GB and 32GB versions) at just over £250, which fits with RIM xxx, who said earlier in the year that the PlayBook would be under $500 (£310).
This means that “the fastest tablet ever” will be in the same price range as the current range of cheap Android tablets like the ill-starred Toshiba Folio 100, and the Advent Vega. At the moment, the BlackBerry PlayBook looks to be a much better bet for your buck than these two tablets, as it’s running a dedicated OS, that’s been specifically designed for tablet devices.
However, The big risk to the success of the super cheap BlackBerry PlayBook is Android 3.0. When this arrives, and there is a dedicated Android Tablet OS, then the PlayBook could find itself in the shadows. Currently the PlayBook competitors are all running versions of Android that Google has said are not designed to be running tablets, especially not 10.1 inch tablets.
There’s worries about these devices, that there may be problems rendering, and glitches here there and everywhere, whereas RIM have a dedicated OS for the PlayBook. All this could change come the new year though, when Android launches Android Honeycomb, and any worries about tablets running smartphone versions of Android will evaporate.
The success of the BlackBerry PlayBook all depends on the OS, which hardly anyone has touched and even fewer people have been able to get enough time with to put a review together. We’re promised the fastest tablet ever, with multimedia capabilities that will “astound”, as well as true multitasking. But RIM does not have a good reputation when it comes to multimedia recording and playback: just try taking a decent snap on a BlackBerry phone.
To really succeed, the BlackBerry PlayBook has to surpass Android 3.0. The bar will be high, and RIM has to better all previous efforts to make something that people want, cheap or not. By the time the PlayBook arrives on our shores, we could have Android 3.0 tablets already in our hands. Whether they eclipse the BlackBerry PlayBook waits to be seen.
Do you think Android 3.0 will kill the BlackBerry PlayBook? Tell us what you think in the comments!
