RIM Finally Reveals Its Tablet – The Playbook

RIM debuts the Blackberry Playbook - the first tablet for business users

Were you waiting to see the BlackPad? That’s too bad, because it doesn’t exist. The Playbook, on the other hand, is quite real and appears quite beautiful.  At RIM’s annual Blackberry Developer Conference, Mike Lazaridis announced the new tablet, called the Playbook and considered “the first professional tablet”. If I’ve ever said anything bad about RIM, regarding their habit of making phones that all look the same, I’ll take that right back please.No really, I’m actually impressed with RIM. They managed to keep this project in check, no photos were leaked on the Internet before the release, the specifications we did find out about were scarce, and the name wasn’t revealed until today. For short, RIM did what few other companies working on a hot project have done, it kept things private.

So let’s start talking about the Playbook. According to its manufacturer the tablet was designed to be perfect for either large organizations or an “army of one”. It will include a blend of uncompromised web browsing, multitasking, high performance media, advanced security features and out-of-the-box enterprise support.

“RIM set out to engineer the best professional-grade tablet in the industry with cutting-edge hardware features and one of the world’s most robust and flexible operating systems,” said Mike Lazaridis, Research in Motion’s President and Co-CEO. He also added that the Playbook hits the mark with industry leading power, true multitasking, uncompromised web and high performance multimedia.  He’s somewhat right. The iPad does deliver obvious advantages of its own, but it wasn’t really designed to be included in a working environment. The playbook, on the other hand, is said to be quite portable, ultra thin and convenient for both work and play. It measures less than half an inch in thickness, has a weight of a little under a pound and comes equipped with a 7 inch LCD capacitive touch screen with full multi-touch and a resolution of 1024 x 600. It looks like all of Apple’s rivals are going for the slightly more portable 7 inch form factor, so on a different note, we might expect Apple to enter the market with a reasonably smaller iPad as well, in the near future.

As for the PlayBook’s multitasking abilities, they are backed up by a 1Ghz dual-core processor and the new Blackberry Tablet OS, which supports true symmetric multiprocessing. For those who remember how previous rumors mentioned that the “BlackPad” would come with its own OS, specifically designed for tablets, this is what it’s called now and it looks like the rumors were true. Blackberry Tablet OS is based on the QNX Neutrino microkernel architecture, according to RIM one of the most reliable, secure and stable operating system architectures in the world. Just to get a better idea of why it’s considered so reliable, it looks like the OS has been used to support mission-critical applications in planes, trains, automobiles or medical equipment. Blackberry OS will offer full OpenGL, POSIX support and HTML5. During the conference Lazardis welcomed QNX’s founder Dan Dodge on the stage who said that “QNX is going to enable things that you have never seen before,” and added that the new tablet will be “an incredible gaming platform for publishers and the players” Engadget reports.

So what was all that about uncompromised web browsing? Well, the Playbook will offer support for Adobe Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe Mobile Air. It’s thus said to offer a high-fidelity web experience and enables the user to enjoy any type of site on the web. RIM believes that it finally managed to close the gap between the real web we experience on our PCs and the compromised web experience we normally had on portable devices. Now, since it’s called the Playbook, with “play” being a part of the deal, I suppose it was also meant to bring a pretty nice set of entertainment features. RIM has added two HD cameras. The one on the front will work for video conferencing whereas the one on the back can be used for capturing HD video. Both cameras will be able to record in HD at the same time, according to RIM. A HDMI-out port is included and it will allow users to present content on external (read : larger) displays.

Another very important detail is how the tablet pairs up with Blackberry handsets. It will be possible to pair the Playbook with a Blackberry smartphone through a secure Bluetooth connection. Using the larger tablet display to view any content from the phone (such as e-mail, calendar, tasks and more) will also be possible. RIM even mentions that the owner of both these devices will be able to use the tablet and smartphone interchangeably, without worrying about syncing data. This secure integration was especially developed by business users who want to leave their laptop on their desk and stick with more portable alternatives for travelling.

So, let’s move to the tech specs. The Playbook comes with : 1GB RAM, 3 megapixel front mounted camera, 5 megapixel camera on the back – both with 1080p HD video recording, video playback of multiple formats (1080p HD Video, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV), audio playing of multiple formats (MP3, AAC, WMA), HDMI-out, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, MicroHDMI and microUSB.

RIM mentioned that additional features and specifications for the Blackberry Playbook will be revealed on or before the official launch of the product in retail stores. The company added that it intends to also offer 3G and 4G models in the future. As for the Playbook, it will start rolling out on the market in the US sometime in early 2011 while in other parts of the world it will become available during the second quarter of the year. We’d wish RIM was a bit more precise than “early 2011”, but hey, we have to respect how well they kept this secret so far. The Canadian handset maker will until then start working with developers to begin development and early testing efforts. The Blackbery Tablet OS SDK should be released in the following weeks so all developers can go ahead and give it a try.

Amazon releases Kindle app for the Blackberry Playbook

Meanwhile, Amazon came with an announcement of its own. A Kindle application for the newly introduced Blackberry Playbook tablet computer has become available. “We’re very excited to add the new BlackBerry PlayBook to that list. As with our other Kindle apps, the BlackBerry PlayBook app will be free and will incorporate our WhisperSync technology so you can seamlessly switch between devices. Our vision is ‘Buy Once, Read Everywhere” Dorothy Nicholls, director, Amazon Kindle said. Well, I’ll guess we’ll have to wait for the Playbook to actually hit the market, so we can finally fully enjoy this application and the ones that will follow it in release. Going back to the Playbook, there’s no information on price this early on. But there’s a video presenting all of its features. And yes, it looks pretty promising.