The BlackBerry PlayBook Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 13, 2011 9:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Smartphones
- RIM
- BlackBerry
- PlayBook
- Mobile
Pictures
One of the few first party apps that ships on the PlayBook is called Pictures. As you might guess, it's where you can access all photos you've taken with the device as well as copied to it. Photos have to be placed in the /media/photos directory on the PlayBook but once present, they're automatically added to the Pictures library.
Albums are created according to folder name. There are no fancy preview gestures to peek at what's in an album, however once you're viewing an image you can of course zoom in/out using stretch and pinch gestures. There's a simple slideshow mode that flips through photos rather quickly, although there's no way to control the slideshow interval. I normally feel like slideshows proceed too slowly by default but on the PlayBook I'd argue that it flips through pictures too quickly.
When viewing a single picture a top-down bezel swipe brings up the ability to delete the photo, scroll through the list of photos in the current album, or set the photo as wallpaper. You can also launch the camera app from here.
The Pictures app is pretty standard fare although there isn't much in the way of sorting or customization options. It requires that you've got your photos pretty well organized by folder as there's no way to view photos by date and definitely no face detection. Common file formats are supported (JPEG, PNG, GIF) while RAW files aren't (at least from a Nikon D700 and Panasonic GF2).
Music
There's a pretty standard music player app on the PlayBook:
RIM worked with 7digital to provide direct-to-device MP3 sales. Songs are DRM-free and are priced at $1.29 per download:
Video Playback: High Profile Supported
Videos, like photos, must be stored a specific directory (/media/videos) for the Videos app to find them. The PlayBook supports .avi, .mp4 and .m4v file extensions, unfortunately there's no support for .mkv containers. The lack of .mkv support is particularly disappointing on the PlayBook because TI's OMAP 4 is actually capable of playing High Profile 1080p content in addition to videos encoded to base and main profiles.
While you will see lower battery life when playing back High Profile 1080p content, you at least don't sacrifice any performance in doing so. I didn't encounter any dropped frames regardless of encode complexity on the PlayBook. Admittedly I didn't push really high bitrates (my 1080p test was encoded at roughly 10Mbps), but even getting to this point is pretty impressive.
Maps
Microsoft's Bing powers the default search engine and maps app on the PlayBook. While the search engine is configurable, there's no option to prefer Google Maps instead.
Although the PlayBook has GPS and WiFi support, the current build of the PlayBook software doesn't support location services. As a result the maps app is only useful for looking up directions, but not telling you how to get to your destination from your current location.
The Bing Maps app is reasonably quick but not as fast as Maps on the iPad 2 or on the Motorola Xoom.
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name99 - Friday, April 15, 2011 - link
"I am starting to doubt the iSupply numbers you quoted."And I am starting to doubt that your contrary opinions are of much value.
"Their memory prices are also highly suspect, clinging to $2/GB for what are still really small drives compared where higher performing SSDs already are."
(a) The price here is for STORAGE, not memory as you call it.
(b) The issue is that Apple wants flash that is low power, not high performance. This probably means that want flash that works at low voltage.
This is not trivial --- as evidenced by the fact that pretty much EVERY SSD vendor is incapable of shipping a drive that can write reliably at USB power levels.
If the market for low power flash is different from the market for high performance (and high peak power) flash, then comparing prices as you are doing makes no sense.
MonkeyPaw - Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - link
That is kinda sad. I find the tablet market a bit of a mystery still. The hardware is either loaded and expensive, or cheaply made junk. The software is still in limbo. I wanted to try a tablet without much risk, so I ended upgetting a Nook Color and a microSD card and went through the mod community. If all fails, its still a good dreaded, but its actually been a lot of fun trying all the mods. Can't wait to see a good build of HC for it, as the prerelease build isn't too bad already. A prefect tablet? No, but the specs are decent, the screen is great, and the cost was very acceptable. :)MonkeyPaw - Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - link
LoL. Dreaded = e reader. Nice spell check android! :Deliotw - Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - link
They are clearly prioritizing the corporate market that is their bread and butter. I'd never buy this for myself but the "too big to fail" bank I work for could deploy these quickly with the bridge features. That wouldn't be possible with iOS or Android. This isolation capability is impressive but I it still seems like they are releasing it with too many things missing.Spivonious - Thursday, April 14, 2011 - link
For business users yes, but I think most home users (aka non-techies) use web mail and wouldn't be too bothered.PeteH - Thursday, April 14, 2011 - link
The problem is that RIMM appears to be primarily targeting business users. Maybe their thinking is that business users will have their Blackberry on them anyway, making an application unnecessary, but it seems like a big oversight to me.galuple - Thursday, April 14, 2011 - link
It's a corporate security thing. Corporate types very serious about security. No email client means that if one of these gets lost, it doesn't have sensitive documents on it since it's all on the blackberry.Kiddo2050 - Thursday, April 14, 2011 - link
I could care less. This is aimed at Blackberry users as of now, and I am one. With Blackberry Bridge this is a none issue.Sorry, but I just can't go for Apple and it's closed app eco system (the AOL of today). I've had numerous apple products (everything except the ipad in fact) and I just got so sick of plugging everything into iTunes. Just tired of that company ripping me off left right and center. Here's the "New" Macbook Pro, yes it's already out of date in terms of specs but you don't care because it's Apple. Sure my Blackberry phone is not cutting edge but the point is no one at RIM pretends it is. The iPad2 was rolled out as the hotest new tablet and they didn't say anything about the RAM which was sub par - "just don't tell our consumers they won't know." No thanks Steve, iPad2 and Apple = FAIL start caring about your customers instead of screwing them every chance you get.
zephyros - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
it's true but so wat? apple came out without cut and paste before...why is everyone so surprised? it's how they fix the issue and how fast that matters. at least they know about it and came out mentioning it instead of letting customers find out themselvesEthaniel - Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - link
... great job, Anand.