[sheppy1]

Hi Guys

I'm looking at buying a Playbook shortly but need a little "push" to buy one as I'm still not sure if I'll just be wasting my money. What I will basically need it for is taking notes during lectures, web browsing and basic media needs and that's probably about it, I already have an iPhone for the Apps and a Macbook for all the heavy duty stuff but have liked the look of the Playbooks since day one..I think the basic appeal here for me is being able to take it to Uni with me and then around with me during the day for when I don't want to be dragging my laptop around with me (which has a very poor battery life btw). Do people think it would be worth me buying one for the reasons I have stated? Also how is the battery life on these things?

Edit: I forgot to say that I will be using this as a standalone device and not with a Blackberry phone..will I lose many features because of this? Also is there a way for me to create notes on it and then upload them to say Dropbox and pick them up later on on my mac?

Cheers Everyone

[kennyliu]

For notetaking you can use Evernote, which is great if you have wifi. It can take voice notes as well. Your notes will be stored in the cloud and will be accessible on any device. The PB also has a native voice recording app. For offline notes, GroovyNotes is a good option.

There is also a good camera to record lectures.

The web browser is excellent.

The video and music player apps, although basic, are quite capable. You can even play Full HD video.

The battery is average among tablets (not bad, but not spectacular). Battery life is shorter than that on the iPad, but you get Flash and a great bright screen. With moderate use, you'll get about 7-9 hours.

[erodenero]

For notetaking you can use Evernote, which is great if you have wifi. It can take vooce notes as well. Your notes will be stored in the cloud and will be accessible on any device. The PB also has a voice recording app. For offline notes, GroovyNotes is a good option.

There is also a good camera to record lectures.

The web browser is excellent.

The video and music player apps, although basic, are quite capable. You can even play Full HD video.

The battery is average among tablets. Battery life is shorter than that on the iPad, but you have Flash and a great bright screen.

+ docs to go

[missing_K-W]

OP- Do it.......do it.......do it......do it!

[erodenero]

You will not lose any features from not having a bb phone me except bbm. You can tether to iphone for internet if need be, and pim apps are native with 2.0, oh and ull miss the remote

[zektor666]

Yes, it is very worth it and you will be surprised at how good it really is! I recommend the 64GB model. I love it so much I purchased three (one for me, one for my brother in law, one for backup)!

[kennyliu]

And the best selling point is the UI and ease of use and multitasking.

[masterscarhead1]

I won't necessarily say like kennyliu that the battery life is worse than ipad.
Apple has been neglecting numerous areas, and I would say battery life is one of them. On 5.0.1, or even 4.3.3, you can't do much without getting under 7-9 hrs either.
You also have to consider that QNX is a server computer system, ios is a mobile system. Of course QNX will eat more battery, but to make both close im comparison, RIM obviously put more effort into it. Go for the playbook!

[dbmalloy]

Sounds like one of the main plusses would be portability.... As an Ipad owner I find they are portable but not terribly practical..... I just slip mine in my jacket pocket and away I go.... As far as the items you listsed... As long as you have WFI no issues on anything internet....

As far as apps go... I find Playbook is limited but unless you want some really exotic app what is availabe should do you fine...

Good luck with whatever you decide....

[sheppy1]

Thanks for the fast reply! I've just checked out groovynotes and it looks like exactly what I want! Pretty much how Word on my Macbook looks atm which is brilliant so that front looks like it's covered.

I don't think I'll really be using it for listening to music as I have my iPhone for that but I'd probably be using it for watching movies and things which I've legally ripped from DVDs..can the playbook play .avi files?

[sheppy1]

You will not lose any features from not having a bb phone me except bbm. You can tether to iphone for internet if need be, and pim apps are native with 2.0, oh and ull miss the remote

Oooooo the tethering will be very useful then as I have a tethering plan on my phone with my network provider and I barely use any data on my phone as it is

[masterscarhead1]

Yes, it can, unless you are using some messed up audio codec, then you'll have no sound. But there is a program that fixes that for you. It is due to a bad 5.1 codec of the file.

[dbmalloy]

Oooooo the tethering will be very useful then as I have a tethering plan on my phone with my network provider and I barely use any data on my phone as it is

The only thing to be careful about tethering is what is your data plan.... If it is unlimited great.... otherwise you need to be careful... Some carriers still have them or limit you speed....

[c4v3man]

Any flash video online, music streaming, etc is great. Obviously no netflix, if that's a deal killer.

As far as notes go, just realize you're not going to be drawing notes on the screen, you're going to be typing. The keyboard on the playbook is decent, but if you need to type fast, a bluetooth keyboard might be a good investment.

Drawing stuff will be difficult without using a tablet with a stylus like HTC's View or Samsung's S-Pen. A potential workaround would be to take a small pad of paper, draw anything you need, and simply use evernote to do a photo capture of your drawn notes and inset them into your typewritten notes. Pretty handy actually, and Evernote does OCR so you can text search the content of your photos as well if you handwriting is recognizable. You can then access your notes across your iPhone, Macbook, and your playbook.

[Darrweng]

Get the Bold 9900 as well. Go Blackberry all the way! you won't regret it.

[kennyliu]

Oooooo the tethering will be very useful then as I have a tethering plan on my phone with my network provider and I barely use any data on my phone as it is

You should be able to tether to your non-BB phone (iPhone) without any problem. There are few threads that discuss tethering here.

[sheppy1]

Thanks for all of the replies guys, they've been really helpful! and @zektor666 I would be getting the 64GB model so that I don't have to worry about moving all my images and videos around, be good to just be able to plonk them all on there and not worry about space . @dbmalloy That's the main reason that I would like this tablet over some of the others..the screen is just perfect for me, I had an iPad once and didn't like it as it wasn't in the slightest bit portable, it was uncomfortable to hold and too big for my liking.

just a quick question though..is this tablet on the way out? I mean can anyone see it going the way of the HP tablet thing and being discontinued?

[masterscarhead1]

Actually in response to c4v3man, check out jotsy, you can indeed draw on the pb without a stylus. If jotsy doesn't suit you, run skitch on android

[masterscarhead1]

No, the OS will keep being updated because the OS is what RIM is going to use on their phones So no possible discontinue

[Harryl6134]

In my opinion, this is a personal choice. On the plus side, the weight factor is a bonus. I'm giving up carrying the laptop around. Also, the current prices and the new OS upgrade make it a steal. The true multitasking is a major plus.

On the down side, learning curve may be a little steep at first.

The PlayBook has Docs to Go built in, so you can take notes in MS Word format. Not sure what word processor you're using, so you might need to add a conversion program on your mac if you're not using MS Office.

I'm very glad I bought mine, especially since the price was down and the new OS had released two days earlier!

Harryl

Torch 9800 and PlayBook 16GB

[sheppy1]

Any flash video online, music streaming, etc is great. Obviously no netflix, if that's a deal killer.

As far as notes go, just realize you're not going to be drawing notes on the screen, you're going to be typing. The keyboard on the playbook is decent, but if you need to type fast, a bluetooth keyboard might be a good investment.

Drawing stuff will be difficult without using a tablet with a stylus like HTC's View or Samsung's S-Pen. A potential workaround would be to take a small pad of paper, draw anything you need, and simply use evernote to do a photo capture of your drawn notes and inset them into your typewritten notes. Pretty handy actually, and Evernote does OCR so you can text search the content of your photos as well if you handwriting is recognizable. You can then access your notes across your iPhone, Macbook, and your playbook.

I'm not bothered about netflix as I live in the UK anyway and the selection of movies is pretty poor here so I cancelled my subscription after the trial :P. That was going to be my next question..how is the keyboard for typing..but TBH I only ever make basic notes anyway and then draw the odd diagram on a piece of paper which then gets lost and your suggestion of using evernote seems to solve that! I think my basic use for this tablet would be to sort of replace my laptop in a way as I hate having to lug it around and find a plug socket for when it runs out of juice 2 hours into my day lol :P. I also do need to have flash because I need to be able to access online material which is flash based which I assume the PB would run with no problems

[sheppy1]

In my opinion, this is a personal choice. On the plus side, the weight factor is a bonus. I'm giving up carrying the laptop around. Also, the current prices and the new OS upgrade make it a steal. The true multitasking is a major plus.

On the down side, learning curve may be a little steep at first.

The PlayBook has Docs to Go built in, so you can take notes in MS Word format. Not sure what word processor you're using, so you might need to add a conversion program on your mac if you're not using MS Office.

I'm very glad I bought mine, especially since the price was down and the new OS had released two days earlier!

Harryl

Torch 9800 and PlayBook 16GB

Well I'm currently using MS Office on my Mac too so conversion wouldn't be necessary and I guess all my current notes would be readable on the PB too

[Princepia]

You can easily find sketch app for free that will allowing a you to doodle with your fingers, then save it as a photo. Can't get too too detailed but for some rough sketches it would work fine!

[mud314]

Sounds to me like you need to go shopping! Serious, go buy it, it has it's flaws, just like any other device on the market.

I agree that you will find that what you are looking to use it for, it will more than suit your needs. Even gaming on the device is awesome, specially when you connect to a bigger tv/monitor vid the HDMI.

For note taking as someone else mentioned to you GrooveNotes are pretty cool, they do pretty much everything: Pics, video, text, handwriting, etc.

Evernote on the PB is not all that great. I like it, but I would not use it for my primary Note taking app. It has a weird bug that when you are typing suddenly it stops typing and/or will start entering odd characters. I do have it loaded on mine, but mostly to view but not edit. I use my iPhone for that or my MBA.

If you enjoy reading, the side loaded kindle app works great. You can even get mags on that app. Kobo is not a bad app at all, like some make it out to be, you just don't have a whole lot of choice.

Amazon Prime Member? Then you can view your Amazon Prime videos free charge. Some claim it no longer works, but as we speak right now, I am watching Lost.

Good luck and I think you will be very happy with it.

[sheppy1]

Sounds to me like you need to go shopping! Serious, go buy it, it has it's flaws, just like any other device on the market.

I agree that you will find that what you are looking to use it for, it will more than suit your needs. Even gaming on the device is awesome, specially when you connect to a bigger tv/monitor vid the HDMI.

For note taking as someone else mentioned to you GrooveNotes are pretty cool, they do pretty much everything: Pics, video, text, handwriting, etc.

Evernote on the PB is not all that great. I like it, but I would not use it for my primary Note taking app. It has a weird bug that when you are typing suddenly it stops typing and/or will start entering odd characters. I do have it loaded on mine, but mostly to view but not edit. I use my iPhone for that or my MBA.

If you enjoy reading, the side loaded kindle app works great. You can even get mags on that app. Kobo is not a bad app at all, like some make it out to be, you just don't have a whole lot of choice.

Amazon Prime Member? Then you can view your Amazon Prime videos free charge. Some claim it no longer works, but as we speak right now, I am watching Lost.

Good luck and I think you will be very happy with it.

I think you're rite! I'm more than likely going to be getting one of these tomorrow now anyway thanks to all of the posts from everyone here re-assuring me and helping me make my mind up I had a few concerns but these have all been addressed . If I do go ahead with my purchase tomorrow, you will more than likely be seeing me posting around the playbook forums :P

I will also probably try out a few of the note taking apps to see which one suits my needs the best evernote sounds better because of being able to share to my other devices and all that stuff but the groovynotes app seems like it would be more down my street so I will probably end up using that