View Poll Results: Are you content with OS 2.1?

Voters
208. You may not vote on this poll
  • The Playbook was always great. OS 2.1 was just whipped cream on top.

    63 30.29%
  • Yes, OS 2.1 adds what I needed, fixed what didn't work for me and I think it's overall great now.

    64 30.77%
  • I'm happy for now, but BB10 better come out soon or I'm jumping ship.

    55 26.44%
  • No, everything still crashes on me! WiFi, Email, Bridge, and Browser all (or some) don't work!

    26 12.50%
  1. Zeds's Avatar
    Email will sync whether or not the email app is open. (assuming you don't have sync set to manual)
    Do you have any other apps running? Some games or apps will continue running and doing stuff even if your playbook is in standby(as of OS 2.0, not sure about OS 2.1).
    Check to see if you are in showcase mode or not (Check in the General Options tab)

    Do you have your playbook on Wifi and bridged(via bluetooth) at the same time?

    I haven't checked my drain rates recently since I'm a light user and use it mostly for email and the browser, and each night I just plop it into the charging dock. But from what I recall ballpark drain rates I've seen for my playbook with the WiFi Off is 6% per day, and 1%/ hour with Wifi On.This might vary for you, but if you see anything that is significantly larger for you, then you'll probably want to figure out the problem.

    If you feel that the playbook just has a shorter battery life then before(and you have been using your playbook for several months now), try to recalibrate the battery by charging it up to 100%, running it till it turns off by itself. And then charging it up to 100% again.
    Thanks for that !

    - Nope, email not set to manual sync...
    - Can't see any other apps running, just Battery Guru at this point. I expect if there are no open windows, there are no apps running in background ?
    - Not in showcase mode (currently in Default), never knew about this option for modes, thanks.
    - Bridge and Bluetooth are both off... battery drain gets even worse with them on.
    - your obervations regarding battery drain sound similar to what i was seeing before i updated.

    I had already "factory reset" through Blackberry DM before this post... no apparent change in this problem.
    I was going to repeat this process last night, but could no longer find this option on DM any longer ? ? So i did the "debrick" method.
    Didn't load any apps yet, just set up one email account.
    Happy to report Wifi was on all night, with only about 6% drain. Slowly loading up apps that i had on previously, and keeping an eye on the battery drain.
    So far so good... appear to be at .13-.17W power usage in standby, where i was at 1.33W yesterday and for the past week or two.
    Stil have a few apps to load and one more email account to set up.
    May have been a bad install/update (twice?), or perhaps i have still to load the bad app or email account.
    Funny thing was, when i did the "debrick" the only update i had was a 30meg 2.1.0.1031 update, as opposed to the 300meg or so update the last time ?

    Great to see the support and ideas coming through on this site !
    10-21-12 10:34 AM
  2. kbz1960's Avatar
    Thanks for that !

    - Nope, email not set to manual sync...
    - Can't see any other apps running, just Battery Guru at this point. I expect if there are no open windows, there are no apps running in background ?
    - Not in showcase mode (currently in Default), never knew about this option for modes, thanks.
    - Bridge and Bluetooth are both off... battery drain gets even worse with them on.
    - your obervations regarding battery drain sound similar to what i was seeing before i updated.

    I had already "factory reset" through Blackberry DM before this post... no apparent change in this problem.
    I was going to repeat this process last night, but could no longer find this option on DM any longer ? ? So i did the "debrick" method.
    Didn't load any apps yet, just set up one email account.
    Happy to report Wifi was on all night, with only about 6% drain. Slowly loading up apps that i had on previously, and keeping an eye on the battery drain.
    So far so good... appear to be at .13-.17W power usage in standby, where i was at 1.33W yesterday and for the past week or two.
    Stil have a few apps to load and one more email account to set up.
    May have been a bad install/update (twice?), or perhaps i have still to load the bad app or email account.
    Funny thing was, when i did the "debrick" the only update i had was a 30meg 2.1.0.1031 update, as opposed to the 300meg or so update the last time ?

    Great to see the support and ideas coming through on this site !
    That is because the debrick downloads the whole OS and installs it, when it is done it then only needs to download and install regional stuff.
    Zeds likes this.
    10-21-12 12:56 PM
  3. DAnklaud's Avatar
    I'm glad to finnaly have portrait email and the like, now im only missing usb host and saving webpages as .pdf's, after that it'll have all i want/need it to, and it seems to have the best battlife from all the updates ive had so far
    10-22-12 01:54 PM
  4. Jonesy1966's Avatar
    I didn't even realise that there were any issues with 2.1 until I came here. No one seems to have complained too much on other forums I visit. Everything seems fine; the boot up is discernibly quicker (2.35 vs. 4.00) although the screen does cycle to green after red which it never did before; the browser is now consistently fast, I have no complaints there, &; I've tried SMS but I don't really see a need for it so I'll stick to my phone for that. The PlayBook, as far as I'm concerned, has matured into a really great machine and I can't wait to see what BB10 brings to it.
    10-22-12 03:17 PM
  5. rdonnelly's Avatar
    Actually, except for the sluggishness, wifi has been flawless.
    10-22-12 05:55 PM
  6. chris_w_b's Avatar
    The browser is still terrible, TERRIBLE. can barely load the most basic of web pages, and heavy graphic web pages are super slow, its not the modem, downloads work fast, but it the programming script of the browser and other apps, such as News Feeds that slow everything down. The browser is not compatible with all websites or web services.

    Happy with OS 2.1 ?-img_00000002.jpgHappy with OS 2.1 ?-img_00000003.jpgHappy with OS 2.1 ?-img_00000005.jpgHappy with OS 2.1 ?-img_00000009.jpgHappy with OS 2.1 ?-img_00000133.jpgHappy with OS 2.1 ?-img_00000139.jpgHappy with OS 2.1 ?-img_00000142.jpgHappy with OS 2.1 ?-img_00000144.jpg
    10-24-12 07:29 PM
  7. sashlon's Avatar
    The 2.1 beta was excellent. The final release is very... meh. I want to like it, but its so buggy.
    10-24-12 07:45 PM
  8. Andrew4life's Avatar
    The browser is still terrible, TERRIBLE. can barely load the most basic of web pages, and heavy graphic web pages are super slow, its not the modem, downloads work fast, but it the programming script of the browser and other apps, such as News Feeds that slow everything down. The browser is not compatible with all websites or web services.
    Do note that just because a webpage "says" you are using a unsupported browser, doesn't necessarily mean it won't work properly.
    The problem is with the number of different browsers that are available, and the different ways that everyone parses an HTML page, they pages will look different from browser to browser. So what web programmers do, is they make a webpage that works for IE7, then one for IE8, then one for IE9, then another for FF, then for Chrome. Sometimes, just very small snippets of code that might make the webpage work differently. Obviously they can't make one for every single browser out there so if they detect an unknown browser, they will display a message.

    Now, here is one caveat where having better HTML5 compatibility doesn't help. If the most popular browser is IE9, and FF, web programmers might make their webpage work for IE9 and FF only and then just leave it at that. So if you are using Playbook browser, it might not work correctly since the webpage was only checked on IE and FF. This actually used to be a MAJOR problem because many people were using old IE browsers, so web programmers had to make sure their code accounted for the way older browsers parsed, except the older browsers had terrible parsing rules. So if you code it according to HTML, CSS, PHP, ASPX, etc standards, it actually won't work. Stupid eh? Then there are things like using different content providers like apple quicktime, adobe flash, microsoft silverlight, html5, some of which are proprietory.
    Conclusion, not all problems are RIM's fault. Many times they are due to the web programmers that are trying to make sure content is delivered to as many clients as possible as quick as possible.
    10-24-12 08:21 PM
  9. julianrt's Avatar
    camera error 4003
    10-25-12 06:01 AM
  10. Sonic-NKT's Avatar
    camera error 4003
    had the same problems... after retail update both cameras stopped working.
    even a unbrick didnt fix it and after a week of telephone support rim told me to send it to them... i got it back after 4 days fixed.
    10-25-12 07:52 AM
  11. Chrysalis1156's Avatar
    I can't vote with the choices provided. I love my pb but the things that bug me (like browser bookmarking, photo arrangement and Adobe Reader) have not been addressed. I have no plans to abandon my pb however. Hoping BB10 will bring good things before my pb gets too old and croaks...
    10-25-12 04:39 PM
  12. spdill12's Avatar
    I'm really starting to get frustrated with the Playbook and RIM. So close to the point that I may have to jump ship to the Nexus 7 32GB model that will be announced next week.

    For the last year and a half I have been defending RIM and the playbook. Playbook has so much potential. Powerful QNX, great multitasking, fluid gestures that makes it fun to use, but not enough apps - YES, I know, RIM is not Apple nor Google, but come out with 100 solid apps that is a mix of productivity and entertainment.

    It took RIM forever to release OS 2.1 that will allow portrait mode and the other tid bits, but portrait mode should have been available right out the gate or soon after. Look at Google and Nexus 7. They released Jelly Bean 4.1.2 shortly after. Nexus 7 owners did not have to wait like we had to wait for a portrait mode update.

    I was hoping once I installed the long awaited OS 2.1 that the playbook would have been fine tuned and able to run silky smooth until the release of Blackberry 10. Below are the problems that I'm experiencing and I'm quiet upset that the Playbook is not what it should be after its LONG and overdue update:

    - boot time still takes a long time. Everyone on the forum jumps in joy that the boot time has improved, but realistically its still taking a bloody long time and its not acceptable. 3 minutes for me to boot back up just now. Unacceptable.
    - Android ported apps still run poorly and take a long time to start up.
    - Email still takes a long time to load. It should take no more than 5 sec from the time I press on the app.
    - Bridge mode BBM is sluggish when I'm switching between contacts and conversations. Typing is delayed and stutters.
    - every so often when its in bridged mode, I get a connection problem message and I'm not able to access my bridged apps.
    - browser and apps sometimes closes automatically.
    - typing into an app or especially the browser is delayed.
    - App World runs poorly.
    - touch screen is not always responsive. Browser links, links in apps.
    - playbook sometimes freezes and I have to do the 3 button salute.

    I know others have been experiencing the same problems I have described above. All the above items should have been resolved with OS 2.1. We waited for a long time for this update and stood by the Playbook and we are rewarded with a poor update that took an extremely long time to be delivered. FINE, not the greatest app selection, but make the OS experience near perfect.

    I want the playbook and RIM to do well, but I'm being let down with these consistent push backs and poor updates. I do want to hold off until Blackberry 10 is released for the PB, but not sure if I can do so until Spring.
    .
    WeAreNotAlone likes this.
    10-26-12 01:39 AM
  13. Jeovex's Avatar
    I'm really starting to get frustrated with the Playbook and RIM. So close to the point that I may have to jump ship to the Nexus 7 32GB model that will be announced next week.

    For the last year and a half I have been defending RIM and the playbook. Playbook has so much potential. Powerful QNX, great multitasking, fluid gestures that makes it fun to use, but not enough apps - YES, I know, RIM is not Apple nor Google, but come out with 100 solid apps that is a mix of productivity and entertainment.

    It took RIM forever to release OS 2.1 that will allow portrait mode and the other tid bits, but portrait mode should have been available right out the gate or soon after. Look at Google and Nexus 7. They released Jelly Bean 4.1.2 shortly after. Nexus 7 owners did not have to wait like we had to wait for a portrait mode update.

    I was hoping once I installed the long awaited OS 2.1 that the playbook would have been fine tuned and able to run silky smooth until the release of Blackberry 10. Below are the problems that I'm experiencing and I'm quiet upset that the Playbook is not what it should be after its LONG and overdue update:

    - boot time still takes a long time. Everyone on the forum jumps in joy that the boot time has improved, but realistically its still taking a bloody long time and its not acceptable. 3 minutes for me to boot back up just now. Unacceptable.
    - Android ported apps still run poorly and take a long time to start up.
    - Email still takes a long time to load. It should take no more than 5 sec from the time I press on the app.
    - Bridge mode BBM is sluggish when I'm switching between contacts and conversations. Typing is delayed and stutters.
    - every so often when its in bridged mode, I get a connection problem message and I'm not able to access my bridged apps.
    - browser and apps sometimes closes automatically.
    - typing into an app or especially the browser is delayed.
    - App World runs poorly.
    - touch screen is not always responsive. Browser links, links in apps.
    - playbook sometimes freezes and I have to do the 3 button salute.

    I know others have been experiencing the same problems I have described above. All the above items should have been resolved with OS 2.1. We waited for a long time for this update and stood by the Playbook and we are rewarded with a poor update that took an extremely long time to be delivered. FINE, not the greatest app selection, but make the OS experience near perfect.

    I want the playbook and RIM to do well, but I'm being let down with these consistent push backs and poor updates. I do want to hold off until Blackberry 10 is released for the PB, but not sure if I can do so until Spring.
    .
    I understand your frustration and sometimes feel the issues you have brought up but then I remember within a few months the playbook will finally achieve its full potential with BB10 and from what I heard, almost all of those issues should be fixed in BB10. Its supposed to be a whole new ballgame with BB10. I say stay with BB10 and if after that you aren't convinced, then switch. Heck, if current PB owners aren't convinced, then I would say it might be the beginning of the end for RIM and only then.
    10-26-12 01:51 AM
  14. spdill12's Avatar
    If there is one thing that I admire about the folks on this forum, is the enthusiasm and optimistic outlook of an OS that has yet to be released and is continuously pushed back.

    There are are times that I just want to call it quits and throw away my playbook and I come across a post on crackberry or N4BB and it reassures me why I keep holding onto my bloody playbook.

    I really do not want to jump ship and go to Android or even worse IOS. The OS experience on the platforms are poor and outdated. Jelly Bean polished up a few items, but it still continues to be a basic OS.

    The QNX experience is a breath of fresh air - I love the way its feels and its perfect for a 7 inch tablet.

    So Jeovex, I will continue to wait for Blackberry 10 and by then, if the OS is not polished and the core apps are not present, unfortunately I will have to take the plunge that I do not want to take, but was forced to take.
    Last edited by spdill12; 10-26-12 at 09:55 AM.
    10-26-12 09:24 AM
  15. Wongsky's Avatar
    I look at it like this - I bought my PlayBook kinda speculatively. I already had an Android tablet (I now have 2 of the same 10" models), I bought my PlayBook because it was very cheap as the 64G models are being sold for a very good price in the UK at present.

    In some ways I've found it preferable to my larger Android tabs, and in other ways inferior - and in truth, that inferiority does tend to be software / app related, as opposed to form factor. That's not to say I'm bothered whether there's anything like the app support for Android or iOS - but all the same, the small limited number of things I want to do, either aren't there yet, or not done as good as on my other tablets.

    All the same, I still find great use for it, and if BB10 surfaces and it's as good as many put their faith in, then that's another bonus. I don't regret my decision to buy one, and there are things I like a lot about the PlayBook's OS. So I'm quite happy to play the long game with BB10 - but then all my eggs aren't in one basket.
    10-26-12 11:14 AM
  16. Andrew4life's Avatar
    - boot time still takes a long time. Everyone on the forum jumps in joy that the boot time has improved, but realistically its still taking a bloody long time and its not acceptable. 3 minutes for me to boot back up just now. Unacceptable.
    I hate it when people keep complaining about the boot up times. I have said this many times and I will say it again, STOP TURNING OFF THE PLAYBOOK. If you are going to be using the Playbook sometime within the next few days, just turn off all wireless and put it to standby. You should never have to turn the Playbook off unless you are putting it away for storage. A tablet is not the same as a desktop computer, you don't need to keep shutting it down.
    Now, if you are complaining that the reboot/ is slow, that is understandable. The Playbook needs to be reboot from time to time due to glitches, but that shouldn't have to be a common occurance.
    If your playbook seems to be slow or is crashing a lot, find someone else with a Playbook and compare speeds. It might just need a OS reload/debrick/whatever you call it when you get the DM to reload the software. If your Playbook is still under warranty, call up RIM and complain to the tech support. Especially if there are crashes that are reproducecable. Operating systems are not that easy to code, and the fact that RIM also has to make it the most secure platform out there, makes it even more difficult. Google is also 100x larger than RIM so they have the resources to do quick updates.

    Your other concerns, yes, they are problems and should have been fixed, unfortunately, it probably won't get fixed until BB10.
    10-26-12 05:39 PM
  17. spdill12's Avatar
    I hate it when people keep complaining about the boot up times. I have said this many times and I will say it again, STOP TURNING OFF THE PLAYBOOK. If you are going to be using the Playbook sometime within the next few days, just turn off all wireless and put it to standby. You should never have to turn the Playbook off unless you are putting it away for storage. A tablet is not the same as a desktop computer, you don't need to keep shutting it down.
    Now, if you are complaining that the reboot/ is slow, that is understandable. The Playbook needs to be reboot from time to time due to glitches, but that shouldn't have to be a common occurance.
    If your playbook seems to be slow or is crashing a lot, find someone else with a Playbook and compare speeds. It might just need a OS reload/debrick/whatever you call it when you get the DM to reload the software. If your Playbook is still under warranty, call up RIM and complain to the tech support. Especially if there are crashes that are reproducecable. Operating systems are not that easy to code, and the fact that RIM also has to make it the most secure platform out there, makes it even more difficult. Google is also 100x larger than RIM so they have the resources to do quick updates.

    Your other concerns, yes, they are problems and should have been fixed, unfortunately, it probably won't get fixed until BB10.
    I rarely reboot my PB, but when I have to due to the PB locking up on me, then I'm forced to reboot.

    I have performed wipes and reloads on 2.0, beta 2.1 and official 2.1. Same results my friend. It just may have to be Blackberry 10 that will fix all my issues.
    10-26-12 09:16 PM
  18. Ziggy9999's Avatar
    Yes. Can't seem to sync contacts but I found out how to create new ones and that suits me fine to reduce number of contacts on PB. Gee kinda excited BB10 will be available for PB. Overall I love my PB as it seems fast and crystal clear like no other (also considered Nexus 7 because I love android appps but for the price of PB won)
    10-30-12 11:49 AM
  19. Ziggy9999's Avatar
    My browser works great most of the time.
    Jonesy1966 likes this.
    10-30-12 11:56 AM
  20. l0rd1's Avatar
    So far so good, but I dontt feel any differences with the previous OS version
    10-30-12 12:31 PM
  21. chris_w_b's Avatar
    Do note that just because a webpage "says" you are using a unsupported browser, doesn't necessarily mean it won't work properly.
    The problem is with the number of different browsers that are available, and the different ways that everyone parses an HTML page, they pages will look different from browser to browser. So what web programmers do, is they make a webpage that works for IE7, then one for IE8, then one for IE9, then another for FF, then for Chrome. Sometimes, just very small snippets of code that might make the webpage work differently. Obviously they can't make one for every single browser out there so if they detect an unknown browser, they will display a message.

    Now, here is one caveat where having better HTML5 compatibility doesn't help. If the most popular browser is IE9, and FF, web programmers might make their webpage work for IE9 and FF only and then just leave it at that. So if you are using Playbook browser, it might not work correctly since the webpage was only checked on IE and FF. This actually used to be a MAJOR problem because many people were using old IE browsers, so web programmers had to make sure their code accounted for the way older browsers parsed, except the older browsers had terrible parsing rules. So if you code it according to HTML, CSS, PHP, ASPX, etc standards, it actually won't work. Stupid eh? Then there are things like using different content providers like apple quicktime, adobe flash, microsoft silverlight, html5, some of which are proprietory.
    Conclusion, not all problems are RIM's fault. Many times they are due to the web programmers that are trying to make sure content is delivered to as many clients as possible as quick as possible.
    Well thats horse s$?t, not to call you out directly, i mean no personal insult. However thats like saying its the hurricanes fault i didn't prepare myself.
    Failure to make a browser that can accommodate modern websites, including those written for more advanced browsers, and blaming web developers is just plain weak and lazy. RIM needs to step up their game and stop blaming others for their software shortfalls.
    Please keep an open mind, I love BlackBerry and my playbook.

    The browser needs improvement. So does the OS, it lags. Lets be honest.
    11-04-12 08:04 PM
  22. Andrew4life's Avatar
    Well thats horse s$?t, not to call you out directly, i mean no personal insult. However thats like saying its the hurricanes fault i didn't prepare myself.
    Failure to make a browser that can accommodate modern websites, including those written for more advanced browsers, and blaming web developers is just plain weak and lazy. RIM needs to step up their game and stop blaming others for their software shortfalls.
    Please keep an open mind, I love BlackBerry and my playbook.

    The browser needs improvement. So does the OS, it lags. Lets be honest.
    The browser needs improvement no doubt, but my point was, not all website failures are RIM's fault. And in a lot of cases, the website might say we are running an "Unsupported Browser", but that is nothing more than a warning. Like how when you participate in dangerous activities like Skydiving, they always make you sign a form saying "Warning! We are not responsible if you die." It doesn't mean you'll die, but if you do, it's not their fault.(lawsuits for negligence aside). So yeah, when a website says "Unsupported Browser", it simply means, we didn't code and bug check for the Playbook. But most times it'll probably work. Programmers code to ensure >90% of people can access the website. The Playbook having much less than 1% of market share of all internet content, is by no means a priority for coders. But like I said, it's probably going to work fine. Less than 5% of websites I've visited have failed on me.
    On the other hand, RIM has never blamed anyone else for their software shortfalls. They are in fact trying to improve it all with BB10. Yes, those of us who adopted early feel like we got the short end of the stick, but all we can do is just hope that past mistakes are not made.
    11-07-12 10:07 PM
  23. kill_9's Avatar
    I'm glad to finnaly have portrait email and the like, now im only missing usb host and saving webpages as .pdf's, after that it'll have all i want/need it to, and it seems to have the best battlife from all the updates ive had so far
    Save web pages to PDF file is possible using the application URLtoPDF, an Android application available in BlackBerry AppWorld for the BlackBerry PlayBook. It might be a front-end to a website; I have not visited the URL printed on the converted document so you might want to keep that in mind before converting any sensitive information. With the BlackBerry PlayBook NDK someone might eventually create a native application to convert HTML to PDF.
    11-08-12 01:12 AM
  24. Wongsky's Avatar
    Truth be told, I've not found much difference between the 840 beta, the 1032 golden release and the 1088 latest release.

    But having said that, I think I found 840 the most performant and with less issues. I seem to have had the odd foible or some minor slowdown (seems a reboot puts everything back to normal) since 1032 or 1088. None of that is significant or even that frequent, just my finger in the air guess is that for me, 840 beta seemed ever-so-slightly preferable to the official releases since.
    11-08-12 03:50 AM
  25. chris_w_b's Avatar
    The browser needs improvement no doubt, but my point was, not all website failures are RIM's fault. And in a lot of cases, the website might say we are running an "Unsupported Browser", but that is nothing more than a warning. Like how when you participate in dangerous activities like Skydiving, they always make you sign a form saying "Warning! We are not responsible if you die." It doesn't mean you'll die, but if you do, it's not their fault.(lawsuits for negligence aside). So yeah, when a website says "Unsupported Browser", it simply means, we didn't code and bug check for the Playbook. But most times it'll probably work. Programmers code to ensure >90% of people can access the website. The Playbook having much less than 1% of market share of all internet content, is by no means a priority for coders. But like I said, it's probably going to work fine. Less than 5% of websites I've visited have failed on me.
    On the other hand, RIM has never blamed anyone else for their software shortfalls. They are in fact trying to improve it all with BB10. Yes, those of us who adopted early feel like we got the short end of the stick, but all we can do is just hope that past mistakes are not made.
    You speak as if you are a web programmer, am I right? It seems as if you're taking it a bit personally, which was not my intent.

    However, my point has always been that there are more than a few web pages which struggle to load on the Playbook. And more which crash the browser. The is an underlying issue as well, which i think may be the similarities in the programming coding, in the News App, which cannot properly load the RSS feeds which are text only, or with a graphic or two (i'm not speaking of the RSS feeds which are just displaying the website). Even crackberry struggles to load on the playbook sometimes, please dont tell me that crackberry didnt bug check their website for Playbook's.

    This was pointed out to me by a friend of mine who does programming that the best hardware available wont help if the software is slow and doesn't make complete use of the hardware features.
    11-12-12 11:00 AM
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