The BlackBerry PlayBook Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 13, 2011 9:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Smartphones
- RIM
- BlackBerry
- PlayBook
- Mobile
Free Tethering and the Enterprise Play
I've mentioned several times that BlackBerry Bridge apps use your BlackBerry's internet connection for data. A side effect of this arrangement is that when bridged to a BlackBerry, any data accessed by your PlayBook comes for free - without an additional tethering plan. The implications here are huge.
For starters it means that you can introduce a PlayBook into your workflow without incurring any additional data costs. I asked RIM whether carriers would be ok with this arrangement, however the best answer I could get is that they couldn't do anything to stop it - the packets all look the same. Granted we've seen carriers crack down on unauthorized tethering so we'll see how this one plays out, but RIM is adamant about free tethering to your BlackBerry (with BIS/BES enabled) being a selling feature of the PlayBook. And it works very well today.
The other major advantage of BlackBerry Bridge is for enterprise users. Since no Bridge content is actually stored on the PlayBook and since the Bridge connection is 256-bit AES encrypted, you shouldn't need a visit to IT to use a PlayBook with your work issued BlackBerry. Corporate policy about bringing personal devices on campus aside, there's no technical reason that the PlayBook/BlackBerry Bridge setup would need to be vetted before it can be used as a supported work platform. As long as you're allowed to install the BlackBerry Bridge app on your BlackBerry, the configuration should be supported and just as secure as your BlackBerry alone. And yes, you can disable Bridge from your BlackBerry as well as from the PlayBook. Once the bridge is disabled, all content from your BlackBerry disappears from the PlayBook:
The PlayBook/BlackBerry Bridge experience, although not as speedy as the rest of the OS, is impressive. If I had to carry a BlackBerry, the PlayBook might make for an interesting accessory that I could use for both work and personal use.
Clearly RIM will bring QNX to all BlackBerry devices at some point, and I suspect we'll see elements of the UI moved over as well. Until then however, BlackBerry Bridge offers a more consumer friendly experience to corporate users who are locked into the BlackBerry platform. It's a pretty smart move on RIM's part. Making it easy for enterprise customers to use PlayBooks is one thing though, convincing them to part with the money is a different issue entirely.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
77 Comments
View All Comments
legoman666 - Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - link
No email client? Really? Is that a joke?Ethaniel - Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - link
For now it seems, but that's clearly a sample unit. All I keep reading is "needs tuning" and "needs optimization", ergo, it's not ready, and they're going to launch it anyway. Those updates will have to be lightning-fast. I don't want to pay 500 dollars to be a beta tester...SimKill - Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - link
I'm actually surprised. This is because my cousin in India said that his friend in Dubai already bought it and has it for quite some time. Do you think there might be a reason why they are purposely delaying the American release?melgross - Thursday, April 14, 2011 - link
Probably, someone is lying about it, or they've gotten some illegally obtainedRe
Reduction model much as what happened the Apple's iPhone 4.
It's first being released in N. america, according to RIM.
vol7ron - Friday, April 15, 2011 - link
Why does everyone want to price around Apple? The more I look at these devices, the more I'm likely to get the color-nook and put Droid on it. Surely the hardware would be lacking, but the functionality would still be ballpark.16GB for $500 is ridiculous. These base models need to be in the $250-300 range.
michael2k - Friday, April 15, 2011 - link
Um, the raw materials for the iPad is about $260, meaning you can't expect to buy a 16gb tablet from any manufacturer, especially one with less buying power than Apple, for much less than $400 or so.From the iPad 2:
Display is $127
Flash is about $66 for 32gb, $35 for 16gb
Case & Battery is about $60
Mobo+Camera is about $60
So for any 10" tablet the cost if they gave it away for free would be $282 or so. Your nook "cheaps out" by having a 7" screen, only 8gb storage, a slower CPU, no cameras, and a much smaller battery. It only gets 8 hours with wifi off, the iPad 2 gets 11 hours with wifi on!
In other words you're only paying $180 worth of HW in the Nook, while the iPad gets you two 1GHz cores vs a 800MHz core, 11h of battery vs less than 8 hours, 10" and 1024x768 vs 7"@1024x600, 16gb vs 8gb, and of course, no guarantee of OS updates. You're complaint is ridiculous, actually, since almost no other manufacturer has been able to beat Apple on price yet except the Acer Iconia.
quiksilvr - Friday, April 15, 2011 - link
As much as I despise Apple, I have to agree to an extent. Yes that price is quite hefty, but if Apple didn't have it's cult following, it would have easily been on sale for $399. But thanks to idiot consumers, they can bump it up a Benjamin.michael2k - Friday, April 15, 2011 - link
And no one else can order in vast enough quantities to hit the $399 price.mcnabney - Friday, April 15, 2011 - link
I am starting to doubt the iSupply numbers you quoted.They price the very nice 9.7" IPS screen that Apple uses at $129 while the clearly inferior non-IPS screen the XOOM uses at $140. 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. I would guess that NAND prices for tablets are under $1/GB wholesale and in quantity.
michael2k - Friday, April 15, 2011 - link
Apple orders literally 2m 9.7" IPS screens a month, probably 40m this year alone. That gives them bulk purchasing power no one else has except the manufacturer of said screens.Motorola has to pay market prices, while Apple can literally buy an entire factory's output. http://www.isuppli.com/Display-Materials-and-Syste...
It doesn't help that the Japanese earthquake halted LCD production at major plants, either!
As for SSD chips, Apple is paying a premium to get density. The low end iPad has only a single SSD 16GB chip. The mid range iPad has one or two, and the high end has two 32GB chips. As soon as prices are good or capacity is good, I'm sure Apple will use a single 32gb chip on the low end, two 32gb chips for the middle, and 2 64gb chips on the high end.