BlackBerry PlayBook to Be Priced 'Under' $500

[carmenodie]

There ain't no way in hell that Playbook will best the ipad.
That crap will fail like the Sony internet tv. I played with it at the sony style store at my local mall yesterday. POS!!!!!! That controller is typical Sony bloat. Filled edge to edge with godd**** buttons, that do what? Who the hell knows!
And not one of the dozen, beam me up scottie, star trek clothed employees asked me for any help. FAIL! FAIL! FAIL!

 

[Mochi Hana]

"'under' $500" means $499.

$499.99.

 

[.:R2theT]

And at what gross profit margin%?

Competition is a good thing. I don't really see value in any of these tablets for myself so I won't comment on whether one is better than the other.

But I would have to think there is no way BB is making anything like what Apple is making in gross profit. I would be surprised if BB isn't making but slim margins and that is probably based on them selling huge numbers...which they won't.

 

[foodle]

RIM: Hey Rich Business Guy (RBG), do you love your Blackberry?

RBG: Yes, it's a great email machine.

RIM: So ... how would you like this awesome new 7" tablet to go with it?

RBG: ... but I bought an iPad 6 months ago.

RIM: But this has the _full_ Internet! And it talks to your Blackberry!

RBG: ... but I bought an iPad 6 months ago.

[repeat]

 

[Starflyer]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C134 Safari/6533.18.5)

And don't forget, while comparing iPad to PlayBook, RIM's offering has a significantly smaller screen than Apple's, at presumably the same pricepoint.

Exactly. Noone can make a 10" tablet and compete with Apple on price.

 

[samcraig]

the joke and hilarity is in the responses in this thread. No one's used it yet and can't comment. People screamed about the iPad's huge bevel before it came out and it became obvious why it needed to be the size it was.

Sorry - didn't mean to interrupt the playbook bashing... feel free to continue with your silly rants.

 

[Don Kosak]

The same price for a tablet with a half-sized screen? I was hoping we'd see something closer to the $299 price point for these 7" mini tablets.

The multitasking User Interface reminds me a bit of HP/Palm's webOS.

As a developer, I think Apple did a fantastic job on multitasking on iOS. It's extremely powerful on the backend for mobile Apps. Where I think Apple failed was the multitasking UI. I hope iOS 5 gives us a better UI for multitasking. Right now, it still feels like you're running one app at a time.

 

[tripjammer]

There ain't no way in hell that Playbook will best the ipad.
That crap will fail like the Sony internet tv. I played with it at the sony style store at my local mall yesterday. POS!!!!!! That controller is typical Sony bloat. Filled edge to edge with godd**** buttons, that do what? Who the hell knows!
And not one of the dozen, beam me up scottie, star trek clothed employees asked me for any help. FAIL! FAIL! FAIL!

Sony Style Stores are like ghosts towns...Any Apple Store you go to has tons of people in it no matter what day of the week.

 

[HLdan]

This device should be no more than $50, period.

 

[CFreymarc]

RIM: Hey Rich Business Guy (RBG), do you love your Blackberry?

RBG: Yes, it's a great email machine.

RIM: So ... how would you like this awesome new 7" tablet to go with it?

RBG: ... but I bought an iPad 6 months ago.

RIM: But this has the _full_ Internet! And it talks to your Blackberry!

RBG: ... but I bought an iPad 6 months ago.

[repeat]

They are going to hear alot of that in the stores. RIM really has their back against the wall. Karma is coming back to them for their international telecom law loophole that let them keep their email service in Canada while selling to America customers and ignoring the Ma Bell breakup laws of 1984. Thus they avoided the sell equipment or services / content but not both regulations.

Also, the guys that started RIM are still trying to run the show instead of heading off into the sunset sitting on top of their fortunes. But then, knowing Canadian income tax, their fortune may not be as much as led to believe.

 

[tripjammer]

The same price for a tablet with a half-sized screen? I was hoping we'd see something closer to the $299 price point for these 7" mini tablets.

The multitasking User Interface reminds me a bit of HP/Palm's webOS.

As a developer, I think Apple did a fantastic job on multitasking on iOS. It's extremely powerful on the backend for mobile Apps. Where I think Apple failed was the multitasking UI. I hope iOS 5 gives us a better UI for multitasking. Right now, it still feels like you're running one app at a time.

But the fast app switching works well...but I see your point...we will get a better multitasking UI in IOS5...thats about all we need...and the Iphone 5 and Ipad 2 with at least 1 GB of ram and multicore processors...

 

[Blakjack]

Ahh but this tablet has many features that the iPad doesn't. To me the choice isn't that clear.

For you then, quantity must out way quality. There's nothing that this or the samsung tab offers that defeats the quality and precision of the iPad.

 

[bearbear]

I'm actually kinda digging this. If it's anything like WebOS then it should be pretty interesting, mainly from a multitasking standpoint. Not sure how I feel about the 7in screen. Would definitely have to play around with it first.

 

[tripjammer]

By the time the playbook comes out...the Ipad 2 will be out...and its over for all upcoming competitors...

 

[Blakjack]

the joke and hilarity is in the responses in this thread. No one's used it yet and can't comment. People screamed about the iPad's huge bevel before it came out and it became obvious why it needed to be the size it was.

Sorry - didn't mean to interrupt the playbook bashing... feel free to continue with your silly rants.

We can comment. This black pad will have no development community. And I'm willing to bet my money that the OS won't even come close to iOS. it's going to take a lot for anyone to come up with something that will beat WebOS.

 

[CFreymarc]

This is GREAT news!
Competition is always good for the consumer!

Agree but it also shows how valuable some products are when you have something to compare. While I haven't held one in my hands, all the photos of it gives me a cheap glossy feel to it with the screen not being the most premium device out there.

If they are going to go "below US$500" it better be way below the current iPad considering the size of the screen they are offering. They match the iPad price with that screen size and some marketing BS like "the same quality of the Blackberry you know and love" then these are going to be steeply discounted just to get the store stock liquidated come January.

 

[Piggie]

Must say, I like the fact they seem to have put more work into the front end/desktop.

For me, it's one of the iPad's weakest points.

Sure, a desktop with icons on is fine for a tiny screen on a phone or mp3 player.

But really, a 10" screen with 1024x768 really deserves better use made of it.

When you actually think what could be done as a user interface.

I'm hoping in time Apple will realise this and produce something a bit more advanced than a blown up iPhone screen.

Especially with multi-taking, how about a scrolling ribbon as shown in the blackberry photo that shows you mini versions of all the apps frozen that you can jump to. Or messenger windows that you can chat in whilst still having your main app on screen also.

Really, there's a lot of things that could be done on the iPad.

I hope Apple are willing to make it something special in the future.

 

[Kenrik]

RIM is playing the stop gap game... they are really scrambling not to loose their entire business to Apple. Apple already kicked their butts in the consumer smartphone segment and are taking over enterprise level sales.

Who would pay $4XX for a 7inch screen when you can get a 9.7 inch iPad with a IPS display for $499?

If you're going to buy a tablet that's not an iPad it better be only $100 - $300.. and the margins are so low at that point that it's not worth it.

 

[ggg05a]

It's made and designed by RIM, therefore it is bound to be garbage. How do I know this? I own a 9550.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

Let's hope it's nice, if only to have some actual competition. I'd like to believe that a company besides Apple is capable of making a good product in this day and age.

I'd like to. But we'll see.

 

[CFreymarc]

We can comment. This black pad will have no development community. And I'm willing to bet my money that the OS won't even come close to iOS. it's going to take a lot for anyone to come up with something that will beat WebOS.

You mention a very good point. If anything can make a dent in the iPad tablet market share it will be the HP / Palm "Hurricane" project that has been abuzz over the net for about a month now.

IMO, "Hurricane" is really going to have some legs in my opinion. It should follow the webOS paradigm of JavaScript based app development, HP huge enterprise customer base and most of all, developed from the same professional community pool that Apple used to tap (the approximately thousand professional mobile developers in Silicon Valley.)

This, the smaller screen iPad's, webOS Hurricane and the inevitable Windows Mobile 7 tablets are going to severely compromise this offering.

 

[currentinterest]

And what happens if Apple decides to keep selling the Gen 1 iPad at an entry level price of $399 when the iPad 2 is released next March?

 

[h1r0ll3r]

I foresee a big launch from RIM for this thing. 2 weeks later, they'll be selling them as buy one get one free type deal.....just like their phones.

 

[aristotle]

The same price for a tablet with a half-sized screen? I was hoping we'd see something closer to the $299 price point for these 7" mini tablets.

The multitasking User Interface reminds me a bit of HP/Palm's webOS.

As a developer, I think Apple did a fantastic job on multitasking on iOS. It's extremely powerful on the backend for mobile Apps. Where I think Apple failed was the multitasking UI. I hope iOS 5 gives us a better UI for multitasking. Right now, it still feels like you're running one app at a time.

As a developer, you should understand that it is the whole point of having full screen apps. A user can only interact with one program at a time anyway. You cannot use two apps at once. This is why apple offers background streaming and background processing of longer jobs/downloads as they are not things that require constant user interaction.

 

[ngenerator]

This is GREAT news!
Competition is always good for the comsumer!

Ahh yesss, only <30 minutes for someone to whip out that cliche