[nycspaces.]

As luck would have it i was playing with a newly purchased Asus Transformer until 2 AM last night when the PB 1.05 update dropped, needless to say, not much sleep last night but it was good timing to compare the two new versions.

This is my first time every using Android beyond playing with a Tab at the local vzw store. It's got some nice features but i was stunned to see how rough on the edges Honeycomb is. Again only a few hours and most of it downloading apps and configuring the machine but i am much more optimistic about the Playbook after a full day comparing the two systems. I don't game and i am mostly looking at the tablets, including iPads for business use - specifically using for commercial real estate - for use in the field with clients and gathering information, photos, in the field.

Although there are a ton more apps for Android than Blackberry the tablet focused android apps are not all that robust in the Android Marketplace. I don't think having the ability to utilize Android apps on PB will be all that groundbreaking for most business users, perhaps the sheer mass of developers and corporations publishing for the scale of the Android install-base will prove me wrong but there really is not all that much useful or interesting in the AM that doesn't have a similar app on PB.

Mail is ok on Honeycomb but not great, obvious things like auto spell check/correct, split keyboard options are great and it is inexcusable that RIM didn't ship with the basics like this but the overall experience was NOT better.

It is incredibly frustrating that Android doesn't do calendaring and contacts off an exchange server - total fail to have to route everything through the googleplex if you want a seamless cross device experience. (see edit below - thanks howarmat)

PB and bridge are far superior solutions for BB users. Not sure if i would care if i was already using gmail for calendar and contacts but i don't and can't imagine doing so. There are a few apps/extensions that claim to manage the exchange piece but most have some really terrifying reviews... that i wouldn't take the risk on until Google themselves fix or make it a core part of the os.

Rim should have prepped native PIM for PB launch and they would have had an obvious hit, hopefully soon. My theory is RIM should have made the PB mail client BETTER or the same as bb, not half as good. If bridge was a little more stable, hopefully so in 1.05 and later, i think i prefer this solution. I will go Native with my apps on PB once they ship so i can book appointments or look up phone numbers on the tablet with or without the phone but my BB is ALWAYS on me or close enough to bridge.

Maps... Honeycomb/Google kill the PB with aGPS or whatever they are using, perfect... PB sucks, Bing Maps is a disaster if can't lock the gps in and i still think the gps is radically off even when it does work on PB. Google Earth, just jaw dropping on Transformer.

Honeycomb is doing very cool stuff with voice on both the nav and ui side, RIM won't catch-up here and Apple has their Sirius investment, this is an area that may really hurt rim moving forward over the next 12-24 months but i believe QNX has done some work here so maybe they will manage to play catch-up as usual.

Appworld vs Android market - RIM should stop ****ign around here, stop following the Apple, icon and a dumb name tile approach, and just go smart, icon, dumb name and brief description is much better than the 10 click approach of appworld on the web - PB not much better, the AM on the web is actually the best way to find apps, AM kind of falls into the same trap on Honeycomb and is tile oriented but the use of google's search capabilities make it work better.

Camera app on Honeycomb - very nice, rim not so much. Video - Skype -enough said. I haven't compared picture quality but controls and UI rock on HC.

Video, pretty much the same on both but PB screen is actually much nicer than the Transformer. Larger is nice for media but I am 100% on-board with the 7" form factor. RIM is praying every night that Steve never releases a 7" minipad, I have to admit i would switch in a NY minute.

Browser - I think PB wins this, it is not as smooth for scrolling as Honeycomb which feels more more real-timey. But the even the 1200 x 800 rez shows barely anything more than the PB browser with the top minimized. RIM needs to focus some on the browser performance but they are playing major catch-up here with G and Apple who have years of experience under their belts building killer browsers. Flash is a plus over iOS but not much.

RIM needs to get their folks out to make sure PB browser is not blocked form full sites or at least provide the option for the User Agent to be modified to be ie9 or Chrome 12...whatever but Webkit 0 is getting kicked to mobile sites far too often. Honeycomb handles this well but not perfectly and does not show up as a chrome desktop quality browser to all gateways.

Overall the Asus feels cheap and the PB feels luxury - RIM blew it on launching the product, NDK/SDK should have been in the wild long ago to prep for launch and i think they are failing at the execution of both PB and BB phones in terms of innovation. I love the playbook but they should have made me lust it.

Where RIM and PB are way out in front is on the UI, this is by far superior to iOS or Honeycomb and i wish they would focus on the ease of use rather than flash in their marketing. If PB worked properly at launch they would be killing it right now - they can still CATCH-UP but they have been playing catch-up and defense for far too long and i fear they are not capable of executing with the Goog and AAPL to do much more than survive until MS buys them.

Sorry for the long post but i hope it is useful for folks and I would love to hear from someone with a 7" HTC flyer and a different perspective from mine. Right now i can't justify buying another tablet but i am pretty convinced 7" form factor is where it's at. Maybe an 8.9" webOS would be interesting when that ships - it looks cool.


EDIT - Finally got around to using ActiveSync to hit Exchange it works well enough although to a Outlook/BB user the lack of a unified PIM environment feels kind of awkward. Sine I use a hosted exchange environment the support/install directions for how to set-up was a little undocumented.

[SyChO_X]

good stuff.

[howarmat]

pretty good review of both. The transformer is a great buy and can do some really cool things. I have got a couple emulators with roms for games and with the dock you can just plug in a PS3 controller and you have a complete gaming system. even hook it up to the big screen. I never thought of such things that i could do with it.

1 thing to mention is android does exchange and activesync just fine for calenders and contacts. Not sure why you had issues.

[ssbtech]

I think the QNX OS is great. I always get lost and confused when I poke at an Android device.

But I also think RIM has fallen too short on too many features of the PlayBook.

[johnoliver]

nice review, my sister is getting a transformer too, maybe i can do a review later

[JustAnotherBeerbot]

Honeycomb is doing very cool stuff with voice on both the nav and ui side, RIM won't catch-up here and Apple has their Sirius investment, this is an area that may really hurt rim moving forward over the next 12-24 months but i believe QNX has done some work here so maybe they will manage to play catch-up as usual.

I agree.. QNX has their fingers into OnStar, Nav, in-car entertainment, etc. Probably will see some technology migration there in the future. RIM of course has years of experience with hands-free voice commands on the BB, so again, the technology is kicking around somewhere.