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Hey all,
As I mentioned in this thread, I attended the #MeetThePlayBook event in Toronto, Canada yesterday and I came loaded with a variety of CrackBerry community questions.
Although this was NOT a press event, and they did not want us talking to huge amounts of people about what we saw, I figured I would share with the CrackBerry community anyway. Most of you will be buying it regardless of what I write here, so there's no harm, right?
Disclaimer: What I saw was "early" software. A lot of these impressions and bugs could be completely squashed before release.
This is a long read, but it covers most of the bases.
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Hardware:
This is definitely the most impressive part about the PlayBook. If you're a long time BlackBerry user, you're probably shocked to learn that RIM actually has some ahead of the curve hardware coming out before their competitors. Typically they lag behind by years, but this is not the case with the PlayBook.
The first thing that struck me is how small it is. Every time they carried it around they would put it inside one of their jacket pockets (inside a leather slip case that may or may not be included). I brought my iPad, and it's roughly half the total physical size. This may or may not be a plus to you, it's tough to say. Just like the iPad, it will ship with 16, 32, and 64GB capacity options.
The size is interesting though, the screen is 7" as we all know by now, 1024x600 resolution. To put things in perspective, the iPad has a 9.7" screen that is 1024x768, so the PlayBook really packs a lot of pixels in to the display. Text is incredibly readable even when zoomed out, and pictures, icons, applications, and everything looked super crisp.
Speaking of the LCD screen, it's really beautiful. As I mentioned, it's very high resolution and appears to be quite responsive to touch. (with some exceptions) The colours are excellent, although they wouldn't tell me how many colours it actually supports. (current BlackBerry's support 65,000K, iPad is 16.7M) The black levels are really good, just like on your BlackBerry.
One area where the screen is lacking is touch support. The iPad currently supports 10 active touch points at a time, and there are a few applications out there that support this. The PlayBook is only capable of 4 active touch points at a time. This isn't a deal breaker by any means, but it is worth mentioning. To be fair, the device is much smaller than the iPad, and putting all 10 fingers on the screen would effectively hide it from view.
The PlayBook has DUAL stereo speakers, and they are VERY loud and VERY clear. They easily best the current generation iPad, although I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple improve their speaker on the upcoming iPad.
It has dual cameras (3MP front, 5MP back), and each camera is capable of recording 1080P video. (sweet!) The quality of these cameras was great, and I was impressed at how well the front camera worked in low light.
It does have MicroHDMI and MicroUSB, but RIM didn't elaborate on the capabilities users would have with these. When I asked if it would support external USB devices (keyboards, hard drives, other devices), they said they couldn't discuss it yet. I expect it probably will support mass storage devices, but most likely the feature isn't fully baked into the OS yet. (get used to hear that a lot)
There was no mention of what formats would be supported with HDMI out, but I expect it will be the standard 1080p HD Video, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV that the device can play back itself. RIM wouldn't confirm ANYTHING on the matter though.
The PlayBook does feature WiFi A/B/G/N, so you get the whole lot to play with. It also features Bluetooth 2.1 with the ability to connect to your BlackBerry via. a secure channel for data swapping and tethering. (more on that later) One thing that seemed to be a constant problem was the devices inability to connect to WiFi. We watched as RIM employees tried (and failed) to connect to a whole host of WiFi connections.
Connecting to WiFi networks looked interesting. Touching the WiFi indicator on the top of indicator bar caused the WiFi menu to slide down, and it was very stylized, listing all of the available connections, their security settings, and signal strength. (sorry, no pictures were allowed!)
One thing I wasn't totally aware of is that the border around the device is fully touch sensitive. Worry not, because you can still hold the device from the border without triggering events.
Sliding from the left or right border and on to the screen zooms out of your current application a little and allows you to swipe left and right between open applications. This worked really fluidly and I can see it being very useful for the times when you're working on two documents at once.
In terms of hardware sensors, the PlayBook features an accelerometer and a GPS module. When I asked if it had a built in gyroscope or compass, they declined to answer. It's possible that it is built in, but again, the feature may not be baked in to the OS yet. Still, I suspect they're not there.
One thing I did like was that RIM is leaving the top border API open for developers to access. That means you can expect a lot of applications to make use of swiping down from the top border to pull up extra menus, level selection, volume menus, or whatever they can think of. There was a by Universal Mind which let you slide your finger down from the border to pull up the latest game scores. (cool!)
Sliding your finger from the bottom border upwards on to the screen zooms you fully out of the application and on to the "home screen". This is the standard PlayBook main screen. You have your ribbon of icons along the bottom, your open applications in a Palm Pre-esque card view just above that, and of course your notification area and clock above that. This feature seemed to be hit or miss. It was strange, but I swear I saw RIM employees try and fail multiple times to use this feature.
Finally, I should mention that a 3G and 4G model will be available at some point "next year", but it will only launch with WiFi and BlackBerry tethering for 3G support. (more on this later) When asked which carriers would be supported, or if carrier subsidization was planned, they said we'd have to wait for an announcement.
Software:
Please note: This section is designed primarily to give you an idea of the "current state" of the PlayBook QNX OS as of December 2010. They still theoretically have three months before release, and I'm certain the majority of these issues will be fixed up before release. They're building a whole new platform, so patience and understanding is key. These things take time, and I commend RIM for giving us a sneak preview in it's current state. It's exciting stuff.
The current iteration of PlayBook software appears to be very hit or miss. Of all the areas I was most disappointed in, it would be this area. If you're a long time BlackBerry user, you know RIM ships out devices with bugs all the time, and I really hope they take a different approach with the PlayBook.
They started by giving us a walk through of the OS itself, which I have to admit is finally starting to grow on me. I still personally find it a bit unattractive - the notification area is huge and takes up way too much space given what's actually up there, the icon sizes are all inconsistent, and native applications all seem to look and work differently. I'd use the word inconsistent if I had to describe the UI in a nut shell.
You slide left and right between sections of icons, which include 'All', 'Internet', 'Media', 'Games', and 'Utilities'. I did notice that swiping between screens constantly didn't work. RIM employees were swiping left and right all day and nothing would happen, eventually they would just click on the section header to move between screens. Again, "early" software, so hopefully it will get fixed.
They took us through the usual mix of applications, showed us what other developers had created (Fantasy Football, Chatter, a Doodle Jump clone, iReverse) and for the most part the applications worked well. They did seem to be "reaching" a bit to show us apps that the PlayBook had, because there really isn't much at this point.
Often times they would default to showing off the pictures application, which was OK at best. Rather than your pictures appearing in folders, they appear in piles (just like the iPad), and touching a pile opened it up so you could explore deeper. We didn't get to see pinch to zoom working on the pictures app, but they were swiping in between pictures. Oddly enough, this was pretty bad. Swiping between pictures was supposed to have them slide from left to right with a fluid animation, but half the time the picture would just disappear and the new one would appear. Hopefully this gets fixed too.
We also got to see the calculator application ("What's a BlackBerry without a calculator?", the RIM rep said on stage), and during the demonstration it failed multiple times to accurately convert from Fahrenheit to Celsius. *forehead smack* Needs more polish!
I think the biggest area that needs improvement is touch responsiveness. I know I said it was good in the hardware section, but it's far too inconsistent. (again, beta software) RIM employees struggled to pull up or down menus, activate the home screen, and even swipe apps away due to screen responsiveness issues. I fully expect this to be resolved though.
One of my major concerns is that the PlayBook is slated for a Q1 release, but they didn't even have portrait mode working on the PlayBook yet. Every application we saw was in landscape, and there just flat out wasn't any portrait mode to speak of. Re-orienting the device did nothing. I should point out that the total width of the PlayBook in landscape is equivalent to the total width of the iPad in portrait mode, so it's really not "wide" or awkward to use in landscape. You can tell the device is primarily designed for landscape use, given that the cameras and ambient light sensor are all set up in landscape.
So how does it work with your BlackBerry? This is actually one of the most commonly asked questions next to the release date and price. I have to say, having the ability to tether it with your BlackBerry makes this a pretty attractive offering for current BlackBerry users.
RIM says that your BlackBerry will use a secure Bluetooth connection to transfer things like email, contacts, documents, and obviously data service to your device. This feature is BlackBerry ONLY - iOS/Android users, you're out of luck. (confirmed by RIM) When we asked for a demonstration, we were told that nobody there had the "application installed on their BlackBerry". This leads me to believe that you will need some sort of application on your BlackBerry to communicate with the PlayBook. (not surprising)
RIM is also "working closely with carriers" to ensure that you don't get charged extra for tethering your PlayBook to your BlackBerry. Still, this doesn't mean it will be free. They wouldn't tell me if the data that is sent/received is viewed specifically as PlayBook data or just BlackBerry data to your carrier.
This will be a huge advantage for Enterprise users. You could theoretically have just one PlayBook and multiple users throughout the day, the minute you walk your BlackBerry away (or break the connection) from the PlayBook, it essentially becomes a blank slate. Plus, connecting your BES BlackBerry to the PlayBook allows you to stay behind your corporate firewall. Huge win.
One of the big questions right now is how will the PlayBook handle video conferencing. When I asked, both RIM and Adobe were quick to smother the question by telling me that it can be implemented by third party applications very easily. When I pressed on and asked if there was a true native solution for video calling, they said "nothing has been announced". (read: probably not)
Similarly, when I asked how a user who purchases a PlayBook that doesn't have a BlackBerry will receive email (push over wifi), they said that those users would have to use the "great browser" to access their email via Gmail. ("Gmail works great on it!")
I pushed on, and asked if there was some sort of native email application, and again, they "haven't announced anything yet". This seems like a HUGE omission to me, especially considering how great BlackBerry devices handle email. I want to believe that there has to be some sort of native email application, especially since it pulls email from your BlackBerry, but they sure as heck didn't want to show it. I'd say it's a safe bet that it will be there for CES in a few weeks.
Final Thoughts:
The BlackBerry PlayBook has serious potential. As if I haven't made it abundantly clear, what I saw was still early beta. On top of that, a lot of my questions couldn't be answered fully (or at all), and I expect that to change come CES in January 2011.
The hardware is compelling. It's slim, sexy, and very powerful. You will have no complaints at all on the hardware side, and that is something BlackBerry users haven't been able to say for...well, ever.
The big question comes down to the software, specifically how fully baked the QNX based OS on the PlayBook will ship with. It has serious promise, but RIM needs to focus on polish and performance to truly compete with the iPad. (especially when the second generation ships early next year)
Finally, RIM needs to get developers on board like never before. If the conference I attended is any indication, they're making serious moves to build up their developer base. They have a new SDK and improved simulator coming out for the PlayBook very soon, and if developers view it as a viable platform, everything should go fine. Heck, they're giving developers a free PlayBook if their application is approved before the launch date. (submission deadline, Feb 1st, 2011) Adobe is putting their full support behind the PlayBook as well, especially since it's the most viable competitor to the iPad at the moment.
One thing seems certain, whether or not this thing succeeds in the consumer market, it will most certainly do well in the enterprise market. That means you can expect to see new form factors and models coming out.
BlackBerry users, you better start saving those pennies! (or just sell your iPad)
If I missed anything, ask me and I'll try my best to answer.
Cheers,
Andrew
BlingBerry ThemesLast edited by hastings; 12-16-10 at 11:56 AM.
12-15-10 06:19 PM - Not very reassuring that this thing is supposed to be released in less than 3 and a half months to make the Q1 launch and its still pretty raw. I would say based on the things mentioned above, that almost guarantees a healthy number of bugs and probably a lot of things missing in first gen of software. Hopefully it will have copy and paste out of the gate
12-15-10 07:51 PM - [QUOTE=blazed12;5869923]Wait, didn't David Neale said the PlayBook is not running dual core yet? or is he referring to the Torch browser?
He was referring to no dual core.
By the way, based on this review, I'm selling RIMM stocks while the going's good. Also, it has helped make my decision - I'm going iPad 2. Sounds like this tablet's got major issues - can't see them being resolved by March, let alone Jan/Feb.
Of course, the OP might be an iFanboi troll. But, somehow, I think he's authentic.
Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com12-16-10 12:12 AM - That's what I thought at first too since he mentions it while the torch browser is taking a bit to load the site. But if you watch the full, longer version of the tablife demo and explanation, he mentions that the tablet os as a whole seems to not be running dual core.
The processor being used during the event is the TI OMAP 4430 as we've seen in screenshots. It's a dual core processor capable of up to 1ghz on each core just as the official Playbook specs say. I'm thinking the software just isn't utilizing both cores as he mentions.
I know when I followed the instructions for the Playbook simulator, it told me to just allocate 1024 MB for the memory but leave the default settings of only having "1" processor in use. Maybe it's just not setup for it yet?
There's a new simulator/SDK coming out next month I've heard though. I bet it will come out during CES so they can announce it. Hopefully a release date too.
12-16-10 02:47 AM
