BlackBerry PlayBook Coming April 19th at $499, Samsung Intros 8.9" and 10.1" Galaxy T

Samsung.... good move. I think you are on the right track.

RIM. You're dead on arrival and loosing market share fast. Watch for an acquisition of these guys in the next 5 years.

arkitect said:

I agree.

But who in their right minds would want to own something called a Playbook?

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Hugh Hefner of course..

I might have to get my hands on one of these. Hopefully the store demos will work. I love my new iPad, so it will be a hard sell for me.

rovex said:

Blackberry playbook = The IPad 2 killer - you heard it here first.

Look at the specs, their greater or equal to the iPad 2 with the exception of battery life.

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Yes, and RIM has a history of making excellent touch screen devices.

arkitect said:

I agree.

But who in their right minds would want to own something called a Playbook?

Click to expand...

The iPad isn't exactly a name to write home about either. Then, neither is TouchPad, Xoom, or Galaxy Tab.

.2 mm thinner?

let the war begin.

"The first iteration of Galaxy Tab 10.1 measured in at 246.2 x 170.4 x 10.9 mm and weighed 599g; this new, slimmer version is 256.6 x 172.9 x 8.6 mm and 595g."

We lost 4 grams WAHAHAHAHA !

rovex said:

Blackberry playbook = The IPad 2 killer - you heard it here first.

Look at the specs, their greater or equal to the iPad 2 with the exception of battery life.

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And this post sums up why so many are failing to knock Apple off of their perch. Companies keep thinking that bigger and better specs is going to deliver customers to them, and it's just not happening. Apple has never had the greatest specs in their products - it's the user experience and the polish of the Mac/iOS ecosystem that's keeping them coming back year after year.

Flowbee said:

Yes, and RIM has a history of making excellent touch screen devices.

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And what bearing does that have on this? Yep, zip.

rovex said:

Blackberry playbook = The IPad 2 killer - you heard it here first.

Look at the specs, their greater or equal to the iPad 2 with the exception of battery life.

Click to expand...

Specifications are not everything.

arkitect said:

I agree.

But who in their right minds would want to own something called a Playbook?

Click to expand...

Coaches all over the world. You know, to replace their paper Playbooks.

rovex said:

Blackberry playbook = The IPad 2 killer - you heard it here first.

Look at the specs, their greater or equal to the iPad 2 with the exception of battery life.

Click to expand...

For most people the specs don't mean squat. It's what you can do with it that matters to people. That and the name cache and in both cases rim is behind the curve. I don't think there will be an iPad killer in the conventional sense but we will see a lot of growth in android tablets and those two platforms will eventually dominate. And definitely don't discount the 1 year early mover advantage Apple has. They've reached a penetration level in industry that will really help.

Digital Skunk said:

Unfortunately you're so very right. Until it's in the hand and on the shelves it's vaporware.

...

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Yes, I think they should at least have a model that they can 'power on' before they say that it's going to be released on June 8 (that's just over 2 months away to get it working and out the door!)


P.

I hope these catch on enough that I can actually buy an iPad.

DrRadon said:

It won´t sell because the iPad lines will block the view in store.

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I am amazed that lines are STILL long for ipad 2 (as in this morning) -> was any other i-device this well received ?

rovex said:

Look at the specs, their greater or equal to the iPad 2 with the exception of battery life.

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...you overlook that specs dont make the product -- quality and usefulness do.

Widescreen is great for movie watching, and the spec-lover in me is all over that... but it’s not very flexible for portrait use. (Which is how you hold a tablet one-handed, and is how you see the most content on a web page or scrolling document.)

A 10.1” 1280x800 screen is actually almost exactly the same screen area as an iPad: the iPad is 45.2 sq. in., and the 10.1 is 45.8 sq. in.

Held in portrait mode, the 10.1 is .75” taller... but .5” narrower than an iPad. I don’t think I’d care for that. (But with 1280x800 you do gain 32 pixels of width, and 256 pixels of height. Still not great for portrait use.)

The 8.9 display, though—which seems to save a few bucks—is an interesting option for dropping the price floor on “real” tablets. (Not that I’d settle for Android’s failings. As pointed out: specs alone don’t make a good car, nor a good computer, nor a good tablet!)

thejakill said:

I hope these catch on enough that I can actually buy an iPad.

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Ha ha Good thinking!

10" Tab, here I come!

rovex said:

Blackberry playbook = The IPad 2 killer - you heard it here first.

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...and last, at least as far as the spec war argument goes. You're grafting a computer-shopping mentality onto a tablet market, and people don't think of tablets as computers. People don't buy tablets based on specs, and the spec difference between current or impending offerings it not what will define the user experience.

Can I exchange my iPad 2 for this Playbook?

I really like the minimal app appearance of the Playbook compared to Apple's cluttered group of tens of thousands of applications.

rovex said:

Blackberry playbook = The IPad 2 killer - you heard it here first.
Look at the specs, their greater or equal to the iPad 2 with the exception of battery life.

Click to expand...

I hope you are being sarcastic. You can't even access your Blackberry email on this thing unless you are tethered to a Blackberry phone. That fact alone will keep a lot of people from using this. As far as design goes (not specs), Apple has everyone beat.

Specs aren't as important as you might think. It is the software, interface and the app store that really set Apple apart. This creates the "user experience" that they focus so much on. You can rest assured that the OS in this Playbook will not be groundbreaking.

Overall I am glad there is competition. That is good and there is plenty of room for more than one player in this space. But Playbook doesn't stand a snowballs chance in hell of being the iPad 2 killer.

arkitect said:

I agree.

But who in their right minds would want to own something called a Playbook?

Click to expand...

+1

'lets make a tablet for our business users, to get serious workloads done. we can call it the playbook'.
i didn't know charlie sheen was in charge of their team?

Steviejobz said:

Can I exchange my iPad 2 for this Playbook?

I really like the minimal app appearance of the Playbook compared to Apple's cluttered group of tens of thousands of applications.

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Hopefully Apple will take a cue from that.

I too do hate the way iOS looks on the home screen. It wreaks of tacky 4 year old OS.

I might have to go back and edit my first comment to be clearer.

I can leave the OS behind, but it's the 3rd party apps that I long for on a tablet. It's too bad that these guys don't port their apps over toe Android.

Onimusha370 said:

+1

'lets make a tablet for our business users, to get serious workloads done. we can call it the playbook'.
i didn't know charlie sheen was in charge of their team?

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Playbook . . . as in what sport coaches use to hold their plays . . . e.g. their next moves, their plans on winning the game.

Ugh. When and if I buy a tablet, I don't intend to limit my consideration to just the iPad - but displaying pre-release hardware that doesn't even function yet is just silly. That's a Microsoft-ish move - it may excite the tech press, but customers aren't going to care unless they can see the darn thing run!

I must admit I'm a bit put off by what appears to be a consistent unwillingness by hardware manufacturers to provide software upgrades for their existing Android devices.

rovex said:

Blackberry playbook = The IPad 2 killer - you heard it here first.

Look at the specs, their greater or equal to the iPad 2 with the exception of battery life.

Click to expand...

Except the biggest spec is missing from it: compatible with the Apple App Store. Sorry, specs are not the end all and be all of device popularity. What good are specs if few developers write the device?