Dear Blackberry .... tablet?
- I keep thinking about what Thor said about the future of the tablet.
And what is basically rumored. Blackberry (BBRY) intends on letting your smartphone be the brains and power behind other devices in your homes. This is historically known as thick and thin clients. Think of a server with alot of storage, memory and CPUs in it. Those were connected to cheap terminals with a monitor, keyboard and mouse. So all the cost was in the servers. Adding clients was inexpensive.
This is where I and some others think BBRY is going. Your Z10, Q10, Q5, future products (Aristo), etc can act as thick clients. These things are extremely powerful in historical terms. 2 GHz, quad core with 2+ GB of memory. It's incredible when you think about it. These kind of specs top laptops from 3 years ago.
My proposal is that these BB10 devices will get mated to thin clients like tablets. They will be cheap though. You don't need to mirror the processing power of your smartphone in the tablet. It's expensive and kind of silly when you think about it. You have almost identical devices. You can't use both at once. And they are expensive.
I was checking prices for high end tablets. Samsung has a tablet for $800! And a high end smartphone is about $600.
For those two items, you need $1400! That's crazy.
I think BBRY is thinking about it. If they are not developing it yet, they need to ASAP!
A Z10 is $600. A cheap 9" Kindle Fire HD is $260. I chose this because it has a 1080p screen. That's with 16 GB of storage on board. 32 GB is a $30 upgrade. So, let's say you only need 8 GB of storage for a thin client, you spend $15 less. It's got a dual core CPU. Well, you don't need that. Single core is plenty on a thin client. Not sure what the savings would be on a single core device. Let's just say $15 for sake of discussion. I'll also ignore things like the fact that you don't need things on your tablet like bluetooth (debatable) or GPS. You should easily be able to get a 9" "thin" tablet for under $200. But you link it to your new Z10 and walla:
$600 Z10 + thin tablet ($200) = $800
Oh, and when you upgrade that Z10 to an Aristo, your tablet doesn't change but it just got alot more powerful! Also, people buy smartphones on contract so people don't think about price too much since it is subsidized. And a$200 tablet that is as powerful as a $800 Android tablet? SOLD! I'll buy one on principle of low cost.
There you have it. The thin tablet. The 6th BB10 device for the year ;-)
I'd like to add that having Aristo and this tablet ready for a one, two punch for x-mas buyers would be KILLER!
Sorry if I ran on a bit. It's midnight and I need to go to bed.Last edited by kfh227; 06-06-13 at 11:31 PM.
Bacon Munchers likes this.06-06-13 11:05 PMLike 1 - I think I love you.
My Tech-Fleet: Q10; Z10; PlayBook; Surface Pro; Xbox 360; HP TouchPad; iPod Touch 506-07-13 12:55 AMLike 0 - This would be amazing! I'm with you on the BlackBerry needs to get on this if there not! What if this could be the fix for our PlayBooks? I know that Thor said that laptops would be obsolete in five years, I think that is what he said anyways. This is how it could be done. Add in the multimedia dock and BlackBerry FTW!
Posted From My Amazing Z10 via CB1006-07-13 01:09 AMLike 0 - This is what I have been thinking for a long time.
My only question is regarding the pricing.
I don't think prices differ significantly when going to lower specs (I may be wrong, but I think the hardware costs are usually ~$200 on a $600 phone) and the lower price is due to lower margins (save $15 but sell it for $200 less since it is not "premium").
Also, I think that the Kindle Fire is sold very near cost (since they make money on content) and on top of that Amazon doesn't have to give distributers/resellers a cut (sometimes 50%).
The only way I see it as being sold cheaply is to promote BB10 phone adoption.
So while I don't know how much the thinness will affect the price, the idea of thin/thick is awesome (also from a simplicity perspective that everything is on the phone).
Posted via CB10 on my Q1006-07-13 03:04 AMLike 0 - I would be ALL OVER a thin, touch screen tablet that paired with my Z10. Something that I could take around with me, but that is super light and perhaps pairable with a bluetooth keyboard. I'd like to see exactly that: a touchscreen that draws its power from my phone. Portable awesomness. Please, BB, read this.06-25-13 06:52 PMLike 0
- I keep thinking about what Thor said about the future of the tablet.
And what is basically rumored. Blackberry (BBRY) intends on letting your smartphone be the brains and power behind other devices in your homes. This is historically known as thick and thin clients. Think of a server with alot of storage, memory and CPUs in it. Those were connected to cheap terminals with a monitor, keyboard and mouse. So all the cost was in the servers. Adding clients was inexpensive.
This is where I and some others think BBRY is going. Your Z10, Q10, Q5, future products (Aristo), etc can act as thick clients. These things are extremely powerful in historical terms. 2 GHz, quad core with 2+ GB of memory. It's incredible when you think about it. These kind of specs top laptops from 3 years ago.
My proposal is that these BB10 devices will get mated to thin clients like tablets. They will be cheap though. You don't need to mirror the processing power of your smartphone in the tablet. It's expensive and kind of silly when you think about it. You have almost identical devices. You can't use both at once. And they are expensive.
I was checking prices for high end tablets. Samsung has a tablet for $800! And a high end smartphone is about $600.
For those two items, you need $1400! That's crazy.
I think BBRY is thinking about it. If they are not developing it yet, they need to ASAP!
A Z10 is $600. A cheap 9" Kindle Fire HD is $260. I chose this because it has a 1080p screen. That's with 16 GB of storage on board. 32 GB is a $30 upgrade. So, let's say you only need 8 GB of storage for a thin client, you spend $15 less. It's got a dual core CPU. Well, you don't need that. Single core is plenty on a thin client. Not sure what the savings would be on a single core device. Let's just say $15 for sake of discussion. I'll also ignore things like the fact that you don't need things on your tablet like bluetooth (debatable) or GPS. You should easily be able to get a 9" "thin" tablet for under $200. But you link it to your new Z10 and walla:
$600 Z10 + thin tablet ($200) = $800
Oh, and when you upgrade that Z10 to an Aristo, your tablet doesn't change but it just got alot more powerful! Also, people buy smartphones on contract so people don't think about price too much since it is subsidized. And a$200 tablet that is as powerful as a $800 Android tablet? SOLD! I'll buy one on principle of low cost.
There you have it. The thin tablet. The 6th BB10 device for the year ;-)
I'd like to add that having Aristo and this tablet ready for a one, two punch for x-mas buyers would be KILLER!
Sorry if I ran on a bit. It's midnight and I need to go to bed.
Can't decide on a tablet or a phone? Have BOTH IN ONE!06-25-13 11:21 PMLike 0 - There have been quite a few threads with the same idea as the above. Started right after the last Blackberry conference in the USA (Florida) . I think Thunderbuck was one of the first OP's. Idea based on the Asus PadFone 2 phone-tablet combo
Can't decide on a tablet or a phone? Have BOTH IN ONE!
The first full featured tablets for about 600$ have been announced, and convertibles have gotten a real raison d' etre thanks to W8.
The way I see it, W8 will kill the dumb tablet sector, as we know it today.
And BlackBerry has no chance, to compete against MS in the forseeable future, considering the tablet space.
To go with a rather cheap dumb screen, that enhances the BB10 phones (maybe even with a bigger battery), but that is completely useless without a phone, could very well be the future for "dumb tablets".
The only real problem BlackBerry has, is that sales of that dumb screen, would be coupled to BB10 sales.
Posted via CB1006-26-13 12:30 AMLike 0 - There was this rumor as well:
Speaking at BB World Live 2013, Heins said his company has a unique and altogether simpler plan of attack for the tablet space. One BlackBerry insider told us the company is currently playing around with a ‘dummy tablet’ that wirelessly connects to a BlackBerry 10 smartphone for power – sort of like a futuristic Padfone.
I suppose with Apps etc it might be possible for this tablet to work with other smartphones but given the Playbook bridge , I doubt it. This concept is really a super bridge and does away with the problems related to having two OS's.
I do not know about the technical side but would you need 720 X 1280 and or 720 x720 for the display ?Bacon Munchers likes this.06-26-13 08:53 AMLike 1 - There is only a few directions that BlackBerry can go. A PadFone type of thing is definitely of them. One that I would be very interested in. A small, thin and ultra light portable screen would be another I would go for in a heartbeat.
I do believe that Windows 8 Pro tablets will kill the dumb tablet market. Microsoft truly did drop an atom bomb on the tablet space with Windows 8. Windows 8, as a software, completely obliterates iOS for the iPad.
This makes non-established future tablet makers (like BlackBerry) with a huge challenge to face, UNLESS they do something completely different. That therefore would avoid them from 'directly' competing with Microsoft/Apple/Google. It would still be indirect competition (overall platform war), but not a direct competition.
I definitely believe that an ultra light, high-resolution, super thin, portable screen for BlackBerry 10 smartphones is the way to go. Especially if they are cheap, it would easily allow people to buy a wide range of sizes.
There shouldn't be any reason for a high price. Even under $100 is reasonable. If it was under $100, I wouldn't hesitate to buy 3 different sizes, 6", 8" and 10".
Thoughts?
My Tech-Fleet: Q10; Z10; PlayBook; Surface Pro; Xbox 360; HP TouchPad; iPod Touch 5MarsupilamiX likes this.06-26-13 03:22 PMLike 1 - A portable tablet screen that pairs with and runs off my phone is EXACTLY what I want. And if it could support a bluetooth keyboard, all the better.
Different size options is interesting. I think that would be really neat, to offer three sizes. I believe people would be interested in that, and would perhaps get several for different locations around the house/office. Any more than $160 bucks and I believe it would be hard to sell.
Posted via CB1006-26-13 06:45 PMLike 0 - A portable tablet screen that pairs with and runs off my phone is EXACTLY what I want. And if it could support a bluetooth keyboard, all the better.
Different size options is interesting. I think that would be really neat, to offer three sizes. I believe people would be interested in that, and would perhaps get several for different locations around the house/office. Any more than $160 bucks and I believe it would be hard to sell.
Posted via CB10
I could get a Kindle/PlayBook for 200$.
I also thought about the possibility to make this dumb screen, device agnostic.
The BlackBerry Bridge and Microsofts Smartglass come to mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_SmartGlass
BlackBerry could theoretically sell dumb screens to every smartphone user out there, destroying the rest of the dumb tablet market, before Microsoft does it completely with W8.
Like this, BlackBerry more or less segmented the market, before the competition can react, because MS will erode the dumb tablet userbase sooner or later, and the prices for Android Tablets/iPads will habe to fall.
The iPad 7 inch is already an acknowledgement, that high prices can't be sustainable, on the way of the tablet becoming a commodity.
If BlackBerry launches their dumb screens, for prices the competition can only dream of having for dumb tablets, then MS will do the rest of the work for BlackBerry.
Like this, BlackBerry could actually be ahead of the competition, since a very long time.
We saw how good the 99$ HP Touchpad sold, even though it was DOA, considering support.
But it was cheap, and therefore sold.
A dumb screen could really have some potential, but only under the circumstances of being cheap, and offering an Interface that is optimised for tablet use.
(dumb tablets are gadgets using a mobile OS for me, contriary to W8)
Posted via CB10kbz1960 likes this.06-26-13 07:10 PMLike 1 -
- I didn't at all, in the beginning.
But thinking about W8 more, and having an outlook of the use and versatility of tablets in the future, it became pretty clear that dumb tablets have no future, at least not at all with the prices they have now.
http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/20/s...ab-3-hands-on/
^
Is the best example for that.
700$ with a keyboard, and a "real" OS.
Next year, tablets with W8 will be far cheaper, and they'll run circles around Arm processor and Mobile OS powered toys.
Dumb tablets have no future with high prices.
Having realised that, the move to a dumb screen, that is device agnostic, is a pretty logical one.
The only hurlde I see for now, is bandwith and latency.
There are 2 possibilities to implement a dumb screen.
Either by docking it to the phone through a physical connection, giving it more battery life for example, or by doing it wirelessly.
The second option is more elegant, but how high the input lag will be, for example, is something that I do not know.
I imagine it to be far greater than through a wired method.
Posted via CB1006-26-13 07:45 PMLike 0 - I'd like to think that the bridge, or transfer of display, to the thin client would be full fledged if using a BlackBerry phone. You would basically have your phone transmitted to a bigger display, would be cheap and easy.
Then they could release an app for other platforms giving them some features like browsing, email, etc but not the full experience. Like ios in car, but ios on playbook if you get it
Posted via CB1006-26-13 07:54 PMLike 0 - I'd like to think that the bridge, or transfer of display, to the thin client would be full fledged if using a BlackBerry phone. You would basically have your phone transmitted to a bigger display, would be cheap and easy.
Then they could release an app for other platforms giving them some features like browsing, email, etc but not the full experience. Like ios in car, but ios on playbook if you get it
Posted via CB10
Consumers will not understand what the value proposition is, without a BlackBerry phone.
Posted via CB1006-26-13 08:13 PMLike 0 - I understand that, that's why I figured not give them all the features. If the device is cheap enough which I believe they could do, people would potentially get it. But you're probably right, not worth spending the money and time making such an app06-26-13 08:16 PMLike 0
-
But if one makes an app for the other manufacturers, they can make it full featured anyway.
That's what I think.
Posted via CB1006-26-13 08:22 PMLike 0 - Well, I think that having the tablet as a thin client (BlackBerry phone as thick client) and an ear piece would be the best combination. It means I could sit down all day, if I wanted to, and do business, etc, on my tablet. I can take calls and send texts without having to pick up my phone. The phone could be sitting on charge somewhere, and the tablet (with reduced innards) would be capable of having very large battery without making the device bulky.
A 'thin client' tablet should be ultra thin to display/showcase its capabilities of being a thin client to the BlackBerry smartphone. If it was thick, it wouldn't be elegant. As a portable screen, I would love three options 6", 8", 10". If I was travelling (which I do a lot), I would want to have all three options with me. If they were as thick as the PlayBook or iPad, then carry those three screens around would be an annoying task. If it was half the thickness as the Playbook, then three screens is absolutely more reasonable. In fact, when I think about it, if they were too thick I would be more inclined to just buy 2 screens instead of three.
Another thing that could be cool is if BlackBerry made a small and thin mouse that could be used, along with a keyboard. Make the keyboard BlackBerry style (brilliant).
My Tech-Fleet: Q10; Z10; PlayBook; Surface Pro; Xbox 360; HP TouchPad; iPod Touch 506-27-13 12:10 AMLike 0 - Don't forget about the car market.
Qnx car can power these 'displays' as well.
What I don't know is if the parent os can run several instances of itself.
I would imagine it can, being that the os is just an app. Things could get interesting here with multiple screens running bb10 off of one parent os.
They will also have to be cool. Can't just be conservative design styles.
Something like this would catch some attention :
Attachment 176750
Or this:
Attachment 176752Last edited by Playbookjoe; 06-27-13 at 08:07 PM.
06-27-13 07:57 PMLike 0 - I dont think BB would fit in the tablet market .... they should come out with something very innovative to do well and the pricing too ... hope they would ....
I would like them to do a tablet with physical qwerty keyboard .. like a slider ... would be awesome06-30-13 11:23 PMLike 0 - They aint getting no money from me until I get statements.They don't need to be in the tablet market they can sell of their website.Sell the PB as an add on and a niche product for BB subscribers.If they were serious about M2M they would want tablet controllers,stat monitors etc so they dropping the ball here.
What we pissed at is no clarification statements on what is happening with the PB.BB10 cant run on it ok now what??.Tell us teh truth and what you can do for it.Just an update to the runtime,browser and speeding up of the OS would be a good look.A diet BB10 would be even better enough for people to go yeah they looked after us.People would gladly jump at BB10 PB.
Its a good earner this is easily a niche product that can make a nice earner they could just sell of their website simple preorder wait a week or two ship it out. Plenty people did want a BB10 tablet especially at 10 inch.But with no statements assurances why would anyone invest in BB products outside phones .
They've handled this terribly this doesn't bode well for them branching out when your own loyal fans are not behind company products.07-01-13 09:34 AMLike 0 - I actually think that they could and maybe would do dumb tablets... I'm thinking wifi direct could be the solution for a easy connection. Why stop at just dumb tablets when you could do a dumb laptop which would have a blue tooth keyboard with the touch pad similar to what is standard on laptops. You can offer two screen sizes for both devices, a 7" and 10" to minimize development cost and complexity. The difference would be in the housing. For the bottom half of the laptop, you could make the keyboard and touch pad as a standalone option that could be used with the phone along with a monitor to create a desktop.
Posted via CB1007-02-13 10:54 PMLike 0 - Just limiting things to tablets as a thin client would indeed be thinking small, what about companies where their offices are setup with hot-desking in mind, you would just plug your phone into a dock or even just pair it using something such as nfc, then just use the full-size keyboard and monitor on a desk while your phone was also hooked into the corporate phone system too by means of mvs as well.
There are plenty of ways they could take this idea, with them taking steps onto ios/android with bes support and soon bbm, perhaps we will see this nextgen of bridge showing up on non-blackberry tablets too as then they could take advantage of the tablet market having become mostly a high-volume zero margin sector without having to give away hardware.williaml and Bacon Munchers like this.07-07-13 07:07 AMLike 2
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