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Just added a Playbook to the collection

lavrishevo

lavrishevo

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jan 9, 2007
1,864
204
NJ
Let me first say that this post is not intended to start arguments on which one can do what or which one is better with the intention of insulting others. This is petty and happens too much on these forums.

I am a big Apple fan and I have 'converted' from PC back in 05.

So, the purpose of this thread is just to give a little insight into my experience with the Playbook as I wanted something different and this is my first RIM product.

1: I really love the size and the screen. It is perfect for my needs. With how much I travel I find the 7" much more portable then my iPad 1.

2: The Playbook's browser is a joy. I honestly did not realize how much I missed flash until I now have it and content plays perfectly. The iPad is still smother and refined but the capabilities of the Playbook's browser more then makes up for this.

3: The iPad is by far much more developed. From the amount of apps to the operating systems abilities iOS wins hands down. This is really no surprise to anyone as they just released the Playbook.

4: Multitasking - Goes to the Playbook. It actually has real multitasking and QNX did a great job implementing it. As an example, you can have a game + the camera + an HD movie + whatever all running at the same time without any lag. Very impressive. You can output 1080 full screen to a TV and do something totally different like browse the web on the Playbook.

5: 1080 recording is very smooth and the front facing camera is a lot better on the Playbook but lack of software is a bit limiting.

The Playbook definitely has drawbacks like no native e-mail client, calendar, and contact list without Blackberry bridge. This I knew from the start and since they are coming this summer it is not a big deal for me. I don't do that much e-mail. Anyway, just thought a few might be interested in an alternative if you already own an iPad like myself. Same old stuff gets old after a while...
 
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I'd love to have a whole slew of great tablets come out. Competition is a healthy thing and will benefit everyone.

Thanks for the thoughts!
 
I think the Playbook is about the most complementary tablet to the iPad at the moment. The smaller form factor helps keep it from seeming too redundant, and I love the WebOS inspired gestures. Plus it has great speakers and the smoothest Flash implementation per reviews (hard to test in stores when the wifi generally sucks, but it did run flawlessly at one Best Buy).

Unfortunately, I'm definitely not at the point of money being no object so won't be getting one...but I'd like to!
 
Sounds like the Playbook fits your needs perfectly. If in need of a 7" tablet, the Playbook really is the only game in town.

I'm hoping that iOS 5 brings a lot of things to the iPad, and true multitasking is one of those things on my wish list. Flash I choose to do without on all my computers. Don't ever want to deal with it, but that's my personal choice.

Enjoy your new Playbook.
 
Lara F said:
I think the Playbook is about the most complementary tablet to the iPad at the moment. The smaller form factor helps keep it from seeming too redundant, and I love the WebOS inspired gestures. Plus it has great speakers and the smoothest Flash implementation per reviews (hard to test in stores when the wifi generally sucks, but it did run flawlessly at one Best Buy).

Unfortunately, I'm definitely not at the point of money being no object so won't be getting one...but I'd like to!
Click to expand...

The stereo speakers on the front are great and I do love the gestures as well. On a fast wifi HD looks fantastic and is the best flash implementation I have experienced. Again, not being a Blackberry phone user the lack of some of the basics I was used to is a bit of a downer but overall it is a nice device. RIM did a good job on this one.
 
lavrishevo said:
4: Multitasking - Goes to the Playbook. It actually has real multitasking and QNX did a great job implementing it. As an example, you can have a game + the camera + an HD movie + whatever all running at the same time without any lag. Very impressive.
Click to expand...

How does that work? Are they all on screen at once? How do you play a game and watch a movie and take photos and surf the web simultaneously? On a tablet? Besides being a cool tech demo, how us this actually practically more useful compared to the iOS solution?
 
DaveF said:
How does that work? Are they all on screen at once? How do you play a game and watch a movie and take photos and surf the web simultaneously? On a tablet? Besides being a cool tech demo, how us this actually practically more useful compared to the iOS solution?
Click to expand...

For instance, web pages can be loading and you can switch to another task and then back without anything stopping. You could have the youtube app playing a video and taking notes in another app at the same time. You can record a video and if you don't feel like watching what is being recorded you could play a game or surf the web. Just a couple of examples.

I can put my sons favorite shows on the Playbook, hook up the HDMI cable to the hotel TV and he can watch his shows and I can take care of business or whatever all at the same time.

When you swipe up the open apps are resized to preview windows in the middle of your screen.

Like this:
playbook_navigator_508.jpg
 
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lavrishevo said:
For instance, web pages can be loading and you can switch to another task and then back without anything stopping. You could have the youtube app playing a video and taking notes in another app at the same time. You can record a video and if you don't feel like watching what is being recorded you could play a game or surf the web. Just a couple of examples.

When you swipe up the open apps are resized to preview windows in the middle of your screen.


I can put my sons favorite shows on the Playbook, hook up the HDMI cable to the hotel TV and he can watch his shows and I can take care of business or whatever all at the same time.
Click to expand...

Right, again though, it really does make a cool demo and highlights the Playbook's capabilities, but I think there is the important question of utility. Are you able to watch the youtube video on the Playbook simultaneously to taking notes on it? i.e. using multiple windows at the same time or is it just that youtube is running in the background? How does one play a game while shooting video?

I do get the utility of streaming a video to an external display while doing email or something, but that must be one long hdmi cable to make it ergonomically work.

Don't get me wrong, I think Apple should make some improvements to the manner in which iOS handles multi-tasking, but I laugh when I see ads for the Playbook featuring the ability to simultaneously run a game, video, and browser on a 7" device. It's a small screen and people who routinely switch between playing a game and watching a video really have short attention spans.
 
jb1280 said:
Right, again though, it really does make a cool demo and highlights the Playbook's capabilities, but I think there is the important question of utility. Are you able to watch the youtube video on the Playbook simultaneously to taking notes on it? i.e. using multiple windows at the same time or is it just that youtube is running in the background? How does one play a game while shooting video?

I do get the utility of streaming a video to an external display while doing email or something, but that must be one long hdmi cable to make it ergonomically work.

Don't get me wrong, I think Apple should make some improvements to the manner in which iOS handles multi-tasking, but I laugh when I see ads for the Playbook featuring the ability to simultaneously run a game, video, and browser on a 7" device. It's a small screen and people who routinely switch between playing a game and watching a video really have short attention spans.
Click to expand...

For me personally, the ability to switch around task from e-mail, to browser, to word, and back wile the desired app is completing the task has been a nice feature. I was in a meeting recently and had a pressing e-mail to complete so I recorded the presentation to review later while I worked on the other pressing work.

The youtube example was one where I was letting it play in the background and taking notes on specific instructions.

Your right about about it being silly to play a game in multitask mode but one could if one wishes.

The other nice feature is opening multiple tabs in the browser and having them load in the background of the browsers current tab. Fantastic when on a slow internet connection.
 
I don't see the point of having multiple tablets of different os. It is not like having multiple game consoles. Game consoles have exclusive title games (1st party) that might have gamers have multiple consoles. Playbook has much fewer content. It's "real" multi-tasking is just "show" stopper demo. In real usage, it is not that valuable. 7 inch size is not a work size device. What's the point of the multi-tasking with such a small real estate.

HP touchpad is the real competitor, but it's real mult-tasking might be cool, but same problem. They have fewer apps, too.
 
yodaxl7 said:
I don't see the point of having multiple tablets of different os. It is not like having multiple game consoles. Game consoles have exclusive title games (1st party) that might have gamers have multiple consoles. Playbook has much fewer content. It's "real" multi-tasking is just "show" stopper demo. In real usage, it is not that valuable. 7 inch size is not a work size device. What's the point of the multi-tasking with such a small real estate.

HP touchpad is the real competitor, but it's real mult-tasking might be cool, but same problem. They have fewer apps, too.
Click to expand...

The biggest downside to the new QNX OS is not having the apps. Now this summer the Playbook will be able to run Android apps along with native so this is a big plus.

As far as size, this is just personal preference. Obviously, Macbook Pro productivity is not limited by screen size so why would this be the case with a tablet? Have you played with a playbook? I can actually perform task more quickly then on my iPad because I am not initiating a task every time I start the app. Kind of hard to explain without using it. Also, I no longer carry around the iPad. Again, multitasking is 'that' valuable and the reality is people don't how good it is until they have tasted it. Why do you think there is so much effort to make it work on the jailbreak side...
 
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What bugs me is the fact that you said in PLaybook a gesture is what activates the multitasking feature. Unless in ios 5 swiping up wit 4 or 5 fingers means goin to a preview screen, swiping up with 1 or 2 fingers in some apps already have a function
 
I was given a 16GB Playbook by work at around the same time a bought my iPad2 (wiFi only). I do like the fact that I can tether the Playbook to my Bold whenever i have phone coverage ... the screen is very pretty and video looks great. The interface gestures work well, it just seems like it's not quite finished and was rushed to market ... I've had some issues with it being a bit erratic on the rapid charging dock and there are some glaring omissions, like no photo slideshow mode when charging. The number and sophistication of the apps leaves a lot to be desired but on the whole I would rate it a B-, needs work.

If they get the Android app thing working etc then it will be very nice.

Oh yes, the on/off switch sucks.
 
Smoothness said:
What bugs me is the fact that you said in PLaybook a gesture is what activates the multitasking feature. Unless in ios 5 swiping up wit 4 or 5 fingers means goin to a preview screen, swiping up with 1 or 2 fingers in some apps already have a function
Click to expand...

Swiping from the black bezel around the screen activates the different functions. Swipe up to go to multitask menu, touch open app and swipe up to close or just hit the x button, swipe down from bezel to activate the apps options or configuration settings. Two finger swipe down pause some games and so on. Works quite well. I prefer the one finger swipe. The gestures does not interfere with scrolling and such.
 
I don't understand the love for the playbook. I have used one and the screen is to small to do anything productive on it. RIM loves to promote the multitasking on it which they should but it's way overrated. We are talking about a 7 inch screen. How much do you really need to do at once?
 
jsbaugh said:
I don't understand the love for the playbook. I have used one and the screen is to small to do anything productive on it. RIM loves to promote the multitasking on it which they should but it's way overrated. We are talking about a 7 inch screen. How much do you really need to do at once?
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Instead of making gross generalizations maybe you should say the screen is too small for YOU to be productive. Some people can accomplish 10 times the amount of productivity on a 10 inch netbook compared to others who lumber around on a 17 or 20 inch just staring at a big screen....

I average just 2 or 3 apps going at the same time It is very useful for me to have apps processing in the background
 
Why did you decide to get it now, instead of later? From what I've read, RIM won't have necessary software components ready for the playbook for several months.
It bothers me that RIM is using the purchasers as beta testers for an unfinished product.
Although I don't find 7" useful, it is a way for RIM to differentiate itself from the ipad. I agree with Andy Ihnatko that a different screen size will help keep the ipad's competition from looking like copycats.
 
eastercat said:
Why did you decide to get it now, instead of later? From what I've read, RIM won't have necessary software components ready for the playbook for several months.
It bothers me that RIM is using the purchasers as beta testers for an unfinished product.
Although I don't find 7" useful, it is a way for RIM to differentiate itself from the ipad. I agree with Andy Ihnatko that a different screen size will help keep the ipad's competition from looking like copycats.
Click to expand...

I spend a lot if time flying, almost 300,000 miles a year. The size for portability & screen for movies plus the browser / multitasking is what sold me. It is not as polished as the iPad but it actually is a lot more polished compared to when iOS was first released in 07 I think it was. Crash central! I'm willing to forgive RIM on this considering Apple did the exact same thing.

Neither the iPad nor the Playbook can replace my MBP.
 
lavrishevo said:
2: The Playbook's browser is a joy. I honestly did not realize how much I missed flash until I now have it and content plays perfectly. The iPad is still smother and refined but the capabilities of the Playbook's browser more then makes up for this.
Click to expand...

I've been working with one for a while now and I'm shocked at how jerky the browser is. It loads websites pretty fast but the scrolling and pinch&zoom are all strangely non-smooth, not to mention the checkerboard situation is far worse than my iPad 2. IMHO the iPad 1 browser, while being slower in load, it more usable than the PlayBook browser.

Also the Flash support, as expected, doesn't work all that well outside simple movie playback, etc. I loaded up a pretty simple Flash-made flipping magazine and it was so slow that it was simply unusable. Which is very disappointing as this was what I hoping to use it for after hearing how nice Flash is on it.

The UI is neat(the live screen on the task switcher is ooh-and-ahh for sure) and looks great but moving your hand consistently to the side to make the gesture gets tiring quickly on a tablet. It looks good but the touch response is not as good as I hoped - it's like things are sliding on ice for lack of better description.

All in all, as one reviewer put it, I can't think of any reason to recommend this over the iPad or even Android tablets. After reading claims of how great the browser and Flash support are, my interest was piqued but now that I have one, I must say this is one disappointing tablet. Again, I'm particularly shocked by how jerky the browser is, considering that is the main attraction of this device.
 
With all that multi-tasking & flash, what are you seeing for battery life on average? How long does it take to charge compared to the iPad?
 
CIA said:
With all that multi-tasking & flash, what are you seeing for battery life on average? How long does it take to charge compared to the iPad?
Click to expand...

7 to 8 hours on average and about 4 to 5 hours for a full recharge.
 
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