Is the BlackBerry Playbook the Right Tablet for Small Businesses?

First, let's blend through the reasons you'd want the PlayBook. It's from the makers of BlackBerry, to start, and it's victimization the brand new QNX operating scheme, which is what RIM's emerging looks same.

It's riotous, with a 1GHz three-fold-core processor and 1GB of Ram. The 7-inch projection screen looks quite good, sporting a resolution of 1024 x 600. It has a fast web browser that supports Adobe brick Flash better than most. Plus, it has high-caliber speakers, very good front and rear cameras, and the capacity to work full 1080p HD video on a TV via its HDMI port.

So, why wait a bit? First off, the PlayBook isn't truly a standalone device (yet). It tries to be, only it isn't. Unless you also have a BlackBerry ring running OS 5.0 or higher, your PlayBook does not have an email, calendar, operating theatre contacts application. Yes, you heard that right: a BlackBerry that doesn't have e-mail. If you do have a Blackberry bush phone, you can pair the devices and use those features along the PlayBook, but WHO needs that hassle?

RIM assures us that these applications leave be coming in a future, free software update, but one has to wonder what they were thinking releasing a tablet without this kind of alkalic functionality. We don't know when the software update will represent, but "months from now" is believably a good bet.

In Video: Lip's BlackBerry PlayBook is a Subject area in Contrasts

The PlayBook currently has none 3G or 4G capabilities. That means if you'Re connected a train Beaver State anywhere without Wi-Fi, you have no Internet connectivity. That may glucinium fine for some of you; after each, there are very popular Wi-Fi-alone versions of other tablets. It just seems to me that for occupation you indigence to be Sir Thomas More constantly connected.

In the months to come PlayBooks will have 4G compatibility (WiMAX, LTE, and HSPA+, depending happening the network), and these newer versions will sustain the previously mentioned, currently missing e-mail, calendar, and contacts applications made-up-in.

For in real time, and so, there is the desiccated abandon that is Blackberry bush's App Existence. At launch, RIM claims that there are 3000 apps available for the PlayBook. That may fathom like plenty, but searching direct App World, you'll be troubled to find more than a fistful of apps you actually want to download. Quality and diversity are very much lacking, and when you compare it with the hundreds of thousands of apps purchasable for Android and the iPad–many of which are excellent–it's self-evident that RIM has a vast hill to climb.

One of the big surprises of modern weeks was RIM's announcement that the PlayBook will be fit to run Android applications, though again, this functionality North Korean won't be introduced until a future computer software update. One also wonders how well these ported apps will work.

Developers can currently create apps using Adobe Vent, WebWorks, and also HTML5 apps with Java. Soon they leave be healthy to develop for QNX and port applications from Android. This sounds great in theory, but in reality, IT will almost certainly make up an ecosystem where apps look and behave very other than from apiece other, and IT that will make up the see feel even more self-contradictory and disjointed.

Presently, there is no slick media-syncing solution. iOS has iTunes. Android has DoubleTwist and several other third-political party solutions. Right instantly there is goose egg for the PlayBook, as the BlackBerry Desktop Coach (Lip's answer to iTunes) has non heretofore been updated to support it. I would expect this update to be future very soon, however.

Currently, however, the PlayBook can function as a network drive, which makes adding removing files concluded Wi-Fi pretty easy. If you don't mind the old drag-and-drop, this really isn't indeed bad.

Lastly, something else to toy with and that can't be changed with a software update is the device's size. At 7 inches, information technology's sportsmanlike 2 inches bigger than some phones, such as the Dell Run, and IT's more than 3 inches little than some competitory tablets, such as the Motorola Xoom. Some of the "buttons" in applications are just excessively small to be well usable. Combined wonders, when Android apps become available for the PlayBook, how usable will they be if they were designed for larger devices and are now shrunk down?

Also, if your tablet isn't that much bigger than your phone and you have to quickly respond to an e-chain armor, who wouldn't just respond using the phone, rather than pulling out and pairing both devices? Yet, the little sized does fix the pill somewhat to a greater extent takeout, easier to hold, and could help step-up battery life.

Umpteen called the Motorola Xoom "uncomplete-treated" when IT was discharged. If that's true, then the PlayBook is quarter-baked at the best. The hardware is really bad excellent, right on equality with the current top tablets. The software needs to trance upfield before it's cook for primetime, though, and I advise you to waitress until it does. Lip needs to hurry in a major way before others start leapfrogging the computer hardware as well. If the software can't view up in time, the PlayBook will never tied have a chance at being relevant.