[rob nexus]

well said indeed..

not a tekkie myself, but fortunate enough to have lots of toys...
work is iphone 4s (works fine.. but sorry my company switched from BB about 8 months ago.. wish they had waited a bit before pulling the trigger).
work is also an ancient Dell Latitude laptop with XP pro - works, but come on IT department... PLEASE.
work and play:
bb playbook (had since launch day - 4/19/11 - full $599 for the 32 gb - hasn't been flawless... but it sure did grow on me.) - best feature as Richard comments above - form factor
- can't imagine having a 10" tablet running a slide show at a restaurant while I break bread with customers - with the PB, works great, doesn't take needed
space from the table - but always as it scrolls through images of what I sell... ALWAYS my customers interrupt and want to know more....
Nexus 10 - only had a couple weeks - am sure I will like it more and more....
Samsung 10" netbook - works just fine - connect a 22" monitor to it at tabletop trade shows.

Again, anything is better than nothing... and all are good. I am just constantly amazed (some would say easily impressed) that all this can be accomplished based on ones and zeros (although my older sib the engineer tells me that terminology is SO 1990s).

[hashtagwinning]

I was thinking of buying a Nexus 10, but I might just wait and see how that 10 inch PlayBook 'plays' out

[Gooseberry Falls]

Sorry to hear your jellybean tablet is a piece of junk. My experience with ICS, an inferior OS in most estimations and on an entry-level phone at that, is not at all similar. And I would never characterize my PB as smooth and stable. The browser is hardly tolerable unless you turn off java and flash, at which point it is comparable to or perhaps a tad quicker than my entry-level android phone using Chrome. Add back java and flash and it is significantly slower. And comparing android apps to those on PB is a joke. By far the majority of PB apps I download, native and android, I immediately delete as they simply don't work or are painful to coax them to do so, while I keep at least three-quarters of the many more android apps I've downloaded to my phone (most of which are not even available in appworld). As for having to close JB and clear the cache "a lot", again, your experience is light years away from mine with ICS (operating with only half a gig of ram). In fact, I've only cleared the cache three or four times on my phone (in four months) while I clear the PB's about once a week.

I won't claim android is perfect. But I get a real laugh out of postings where apparently desperate PB owners extoll their unit's smooth operation, quality apps, and all-round cutting-edge performance. Thanks for the humor.

Glad I was able to amuse and I am not in anyway desperate for approval. That is my user experience. My Jellybean tablet is not a piece of junk. It is a Xoom and a Google Experience Device. Pure android. I totally agree that ICS or JB on a phone is a good experience. I have two, Droid Bionic and Razr Maxx HD. But just realize that due to the fragmentation in android, most apps are optimized for the phone form factor. A small percentage of the ~800K apps are actually made for the tablet form factor. So be prepared for that different user experience. Angry Birds Space works well on my phones. On my Xoom, I can get a couple of games in before the graphics go haywire and it eventually freezes. No problem at all on my PB. Sure the Nexus 7/10 are nice devices. I even recommended that over the PB to my sister that had to have skype. But she still says "boy your PB sounds better" and "wish I could take HD video and play it on the TV". There is no perfect device.

Since you appear to be app-centric, you should go android. But everything is not rosy on the tablet side. Just sayin. I don't side load android apps as I have plenty of native apps to keep me busy on the PB. I think that is only asking for trouble. I wish you all the luck in the world but I still like my PB.

[brianatbb]

If there is any consensus that might be emerging on PB vs. the Rest, it may be that the PB is a good media device while the Rest excel as app players. And any potential buyers should be aware of those differences. In other words, don't buy a PB if you want an app experience; you'll almost certainly be disappointed. But if you are heavily into media consumption, it might be the best one at its price point. That could change during the course of this year if BB doesn't up its game in the app department (and promises don't count).

[Gooseberry Falls]

Agreed. There is no point to these "us vs. them" comparisons. All devices have their strength and weaknesses and should be evaluated on your own personal priorities. I think BB is on the right track with its ecosystem and targeting the world's most used apps and courting those developers. Microsoft just leaves it to the consumer and says go ask the developer, which probably won't work. Don't think we need hundreds of versions of assassins beating up on fruit/veggies, though....

[deanbroad2002]

The screen and the build quality are so much better on the playbook the nexus feels cheap.

[lexluthorxx]

Ever tried gooseberry wine. Mmmmmmmm

You ever think you might be sad_old_man because you obsess with alcohol?

[texn884]

I love both my BB PB's and I have loaded a few recommended apps and I don't see why everyone needs 300,000 aps! How many can you use anyways? Those of you that fall into the apple and android app trap are fools. Do you load every app on your tablets and phones? Heck NO! Most apps are useless and how many time will you use most apps anyways?

Oh well most people are sheep.

[Bbnivende]

I can understand it doesn't have enough apps for everybody. But it does have apps, some apps, not no apps. And the browser is awesome (once you know how to keep it going) Love watching movies and TV right in the browser. What apps do you use everyday, or at least once a week, that you would like to have on your PB?

The Crackberries lose me when they extoll the virtues of the Playbook . I have one. I am glad you like your PB but for me it was a waste of money.

[irrebkcalB]

Unless you have experienced PlayBook/BB bridge capability, you can't truly say you've had the full PlayBook experience.

The browser is adequate and fully capable and works well enough to stream video. Html5 browser upgrade would be awesome however.

[Bbnivende]

Unless you have experienced PlayBook/BB bridge capability, you can't truly say you've had the full PlayBook experience.

The browser is adequate and fully capable and works well enough to stream video. Html5 browser upgrade would be awesome however.

Since I am just a "consumer" I have never needed the bridge to being in files from work or read e-mails from work so perhaps I don't see the advantages. I use office webmail for viewing e-mails and I don't have an office phone.

[Bad Whippet]

I'm not a BB phone user so have never tried the bridge. I simply wanted a smaller tablet that would play Divx movies without needing to convert them. None of the mainstream tablets came anywhere close without fussy conversion to h264 etc so I didn't bother. Then I was given a Playbook 16Gb which plays Divx out of the box (I didn't know BB even made tablets). For �129, I was able to buy a 64Gb version too - compared to the iPad Mini 64Gb at �499, it was a complete steal!

But it comes down to what individuals want. The Playbook offers the best choices for movie playback, and the cheapest storage per �, so none of the other tablets would have been a better choice for me personally (apps aren't especially important, though I seem to have bought a lot of games from BB's Appworld lately). My only unmet 'want' is Skype. The Playbook offers every other app I need for reading, music, FB, cloud storage etc., and is better than my Android phone for web browsing (pages display as they should, Flash and Java are both supported properly), and the sound quality betters my much-loved iPod. It's not a cutting-edge tablet any longer, but it's perfect for me.

[Jmaxim]

Should have written best device. Writing on the Nexus. PB excels there also.

I believe he was typing on the PB. I find it a nice to type on but a bitach to make corrections.

[shiftymagoo]

I have 2 playbooks that I bought in Oct 2012. These were my first tablets but I was very familiar with Ipad/pod IOS environment. I imediately liked the quality and feel of the playbook and as a tech junkie I found myself comparing the PB to other tablets and Ipads whenever I came in contact with them. It was very evident that for a 2 year old tablet it was still in many ways superior in almost every category except apps.

I just bought an Asus Transformer Infinity for work (because I didnt want to use my PB and put it at risk of lost/stolen/etc.) and I have to say I still prefer my PB. The build quality of the Asus seems quite good but having had my playbook now for a number of months I feel like the Android is missing something. The playbook just performs better and navigating around with gestures really is more intuitive than the Android.

The apps on the android of course offer more selection but just because there are more doesnt mean they are any good. How many conversion calculators do you need? How many twitter apps can you use? There are du[;icates of duplicates and to me that doesnt make it better.

I was also blown away to learn that Android 4.0+ will not be supported by Adobe so no FLASH. You cant even force it on to your Jellybean device. I also found that the browsing was not better than my PB either. I can get to sites faster on my PB than i can on the Asus and navigation seems more fluid and intuitive on the PB too.

Another thing I think is worth mentioning, it seems to me that all PB or BB's are not created equally. My PB never has issues running native or android apps but others are not as smooth or trouble free. This is soley on BB for having QC issues and it seems as thought this is still an issue from what we are hearing about some Z10's having issues that other arent.

Bottom line to me is that the PB, for a legacy tablet, is still hard to beat considering quality, price and features.

[vanfred1]

I have now bought and sold (each for a small profit) three Playbooks.
They are now really cheap, you can buy a 64GB one new for �120 in the UK. They are well made with a great screen. So perfect for long trips away from home, just load it up with films, MP3s and it great for surfing and emails. It has a really slick OS.
However, after my long trips away I sell them because they are so limited due to the app store.
My current 7” tablet is a 32GB Nexus 7. In my opinion, except for the OS, no video out and the cost it is in every way better than the Playbook. But each to their own.
To my mind the tablet that comes closest to the slickness of the Playbook OS is my old fire sale HP Touchpad. This is still used by the family and to my amazement its resale value on eBay is holding up really well, perhaps better than the Playbook, but once again, for obvious reasons the app store is limited.

[uncle_numpty]

I've had three android tablets - 1 cheap 7" and 2 branded 10" tablets.

I can honestly say I dont like the user exeperience on any of them. The latest 10" had jellybean 4.1 and it certainly wasn't as good an exeperience as my PB.

Sure android has a lot of apps - but a lot of those apps just didn't upscale to the the 10" display very well ( in fact a fair few were centered in the screen making it hard to see what was happening )

This is not to say the PB is perfect ( it's not - with many missing staple apps ) but I just find it all smoother and at a price you just can't argue with imho.

Cheers