The BlackBerry PlayBook Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 13, 2011 9:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Smartphones
- RIM
- BlackBerry
- PlayBook
- Mobile
Keyboard
The PlayBook's virtual keyboard is pretty standard fare. By default you have a QWERTY keyboard with all of the alphabet present, although RIM gives you the option of switching to QWERTZ and AZERTY layouts. You can tap and hold on vowels to bring up accented letters.
Numbers and symbols are available through a modifier key:
The number and symbol layout is a bit odd compared to iOS and Honeycomb but other than that I don't really have any complaints about the layout of the virtual keyboard.
While it's possible to type on the PlayBook, it's not quite as easy as on a larger tablet for obvious reasons. And thanks to the combination of overall size and gesture bezel, I found myself hitting the bottom bezel instead of space quite frequently.
One thing you can do on the PlayBook that isn't too comfortable/possible on larger tablets is two-thumb-type in portrait mode like you would on a smartphone.
RIM doesn't support any real time autocorrection. I complained about Apple dialing back autocorrection in iOS for the iPad, I gave Google props for letting you customize autocorrection aggressiveness in Honeycomb, but RIM seems to avoid the issue entirely by just not doing it. I understand the reasoning behind dialing it back - the sort of typing you do on a tablet is a bit different than on a smartphone, but I still believe that with a dictionary that is well customized to your vocabulary autocorrect can be a boon to typing speed on virtual tablet keyboards.
Although there's no autocorrect, system-wide spell check is supported by the PlayBook OS. Misspell a word and you'll get a familiar red underline. As long as you're running a non-BlackBerry Bridge app, tapping on the word will pop up a list of possible replacements. There's no way to control the dictionary and I haven't found a way to make it learn words either. Whereas Apple and Google really focused on the virtual keyboard experience, it feels like it's a work in progress for RIM.
I managed to get a Bluetooth keyboard working with the PlayBook, so if you need to do a lot of typing there's always the physical keyboard option. RIM doesn't specifically offer a Bluetooth keyboard however anything that supports the standard should work.
With a Bluetooth keyboard you can type without having the virtual keyboard on-screen but you still need to use the touch screen to interact with apps and switch between them.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
77 Comments
View All Comments
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.