[sahil123]

Masthead Online Blogs - Gadget Blog

How do you reinvent a Canadian success story? You start with a company with sales of $20 billion (Size of the magazine ad market in the USA), 33% market share of the growing global smartphone market, 90% market penetration with the Fortune 500 companies for your products and the market leading mobile email encryption solution that is used by the USA military. This would be a great start.

Critics keep talking about declining market share in the smartphone market for RIM. Smartphone adoption is estimated at 35-40% in Canada up from 10% in 2009, when Blackberry was King of the Mountain. It was so successful that the term �Crackberry� was used to illustrate the user�s addictive need to have his Blackberry with him or her 24�7. In my opinion, Blackberry is in the business of providing mobile email /internet services through their devices for the enterprise and business user. To meet the capital market�s growth expectations they entered the consumer markets.

Blackberry is now faced with consumer electronic giants such as Apple, Samsung, Sony, HP and Amazon. It is not an easy feat to migrate your business from one industry sector to another. Just ask Dell who is strong in consumer PC market but is still trying to crack the Enterprise IT market for servers for example. So switching from a business sector focus to a consumer focus with no market experience or track record and generate a hit seller on your first try is perhaps a little unrealistic to expect. Magna, the other Canadian success story faced adversity during their expansion in consumer horse racing/gambling with roots in the automobile parts industry. Successful techniques from one sector sometimes will not work in another.

How to put the chic back the Blackberry brand? Did you know that a Blackberry with a
keyboard is preferred by women with longer fingernails over a touch phone? All the fashion
magazines should be calling them with an ad proposal.

I asked Doug Brownridge, my source for consumer marketing advice, on what he would do to help transform Blackberry. We worked together on the launch of the Motorola StarTAC in Canada and used a fusion of fashion & technology brand positioning to get the attention of professionals as the must have personal communication brand (at $2,000 a pop!).

Doug, says, first it will take a big dose of creativity and consumer insight to keep Blackberry the choice of busy professionals. They need to avoid that unappealing sense of desperation that comes across in their current ads. Does someone really get over 1,000 emails a day? Second, Rim needs to focus on their core strength � the business sector. They need to market a solution that fits their users needs for both personal and business use, so they do not have to walk around with two devices like Batman. And lastly, their marketing communications will need to exude a little swagger and confidence to re-engage their users, and maintain positive mind share during their hardware ownership cycle.

So lets take a look at the latest Blackberry Playbook to see if the Rim team in Waterloo is up for the challenge.

Blackberry Playbook Tablet

It comes with a dual core 1 Ghz processor , 1meg of RAM and uses Playbook 2.0 as the
operating system. It weighs 425 gms and comes with a 7 inch screen with a 1024 x 600
screen resolution. The dimensions are 7.6� x 5.1� with front and rear cameras. A
micro USB and HDMI ports are part of the core design.

Download Speeds
The device�s wifi download speeds handled all the needs I wanted for video, email, web surfing and book reading. You can download movies directly from your personal library via your computer. You can connect your Blackberry smartphone phone, computer and TV through the USB and HDMI connections. There is an iTunes app to sync it with your music collection. The Playbook is very friendly with other devices and online services and is taking somewhat an industry neutral position and supporting everyone..

Readability/Access to Content
The 7-inch form factor is my favourite size as you can hold it in one hand and the Playbook is lightweight, weighing less than a pound (0.9 lb). My experience with the touch interface is the same as the one I have had on other tablets including my iPad, the problem is still the big finger syndrome and the design of websites with small links to accommodate touching. For the avid book readers you have the KOBO e-Book store for new titles or the Overdrive app that gets you access to the public library in your neighbourhood, where you can borrow up to 10 books at a time.

Navigation
The Playbook uses touch motions to navigate through the device versus the button approach in the iPad. An upward, downward and sideways motion with your fingers allows you to navigate through the tablets content. It allows you to multi-task between applications. As always, each tablet has it own unique approach to navigation that the reader must learn. This was basically very simple to learn, but the up and down needed some getting use to.

The bluetooth mini-keyboard accessory takes the touch navigation experience in another
direction with a touch pad feature built-in the design. It is available for $120.

Price Feature
This tablet has been priced at $199 and this is the sweet spot I believe for tablets. As a comparison to the Kindle Fire, Amazon�s 7� tablet, the Playbook offers more features like the two cameras and is compatible with more devices for the same price. For the business user the ability to sync it with your Blackberry smartphone saves on extra data charges. The ability to take my PPT presentation and send it to my Playbook that plugs into a projector/large screen was a breeze with the file management system.

Final Review 5 out of 5
This tablet has it all for both the business user and home life for $199 bucks for the 16 GB model. This is a work and play device that the kids can use for their YouTube and texting time, the wife for pictures, and for me the news and email. You can consume all the Apps at your leisure in the Google Play store in addition to the Blackberry one. As a proud Canadian, we should all go out and buy one and support Blackberry�s return to the chic crowd.

[alnamvet68]

Here, here.

[sean000]

Google play store??? Huh??

[Osh]

That hits the nail very firmly on the head for me.....great write up...


Osh

[Chinookman]

The navigation works great for many but how about ATT customers?

I was told that to tether, I had to get an additional plan for $50 a month to connect my Torch w/ PB.

True/ false?? Any ATT owners out there care to share how this can work w/o additional plan?

Thanks....

[XilinxUnder]

The navigation works great for many but how about ATT customers?

I was told that to tether, I had to get an additional plan for $50 a month to connect my Torch w/ PB.

True/ false?? Any ATT owners out there care to share how this can work w/o additional plan?

Thanks....

Do a search on rroyy and his bridge.

[araskin]

The navigation works great for many but how about ATT customers?

I was told that to tether, I had to get an additional plan for $50 a month to connect my Torch w/ PB.

True/ false?? Any ATT owners out there care to share how this can work w/o additional plan?

Thanks....

I am not with ATT but I believe that is not true. Att has blocked the BB Bridge app which lets you do this at no cost. The good news is that you can download the bridge app directly from this website (just use the search feature of this site). Once you have it in your phone you can tether the PB to your torch via Bluetooth at no extra cost.

[ffejrobins30]

It only has 2 points of misinformation in it.

1: It states that it has 1meg of ram. Hopefully folks will see that as a typo.

2: It states that you can run software from Google Play...nope...just wrong.

Unfortunately, that second statement kills this is writer's credibility with me. If he/she had actually used and downloaded anything onto the playbook, they'd know this was simply untrue. Giving people false information like this is what has led to many being disappointed in it's abilities.

Overall, I do think this is a good write up and points out MANY of the strengths of this device.

[goku_vegeta]

1 meg of RAM,

Yes I know he meant 1 GB of RAM, but come on every self acclaimed tech geek would get a laugh out of that

[Haseleyman]

"This tablet has it all for both the business user and home life"

You have got to be kidding.

[G550Pilot]

Always a sad sign when an article ends with "let's all go buy one to show our support...."

Welfare status request for a woefully substandard device in an ultra competitive market.

Pretty bad. Think Chevy Volt.

[Cracklen]

"...As a proud Canadian, we should all go out and buy one and support Blackberry�s return to the chic crowd...."

That is the clincher !

Real soon too, as I just stumbled across some reward pts I did not know I even had, which could be translated into over a 100cdn $ of FS gift cards, I could subsequently use on a purchase of a 64gb ! I finally decided, this was more tangible and longer lasting than same $ in gas cards . . . imho

[joshua_sx1]

"...As a proud Canadian, we should all go out and buy one and support Blackberry’s return to the chic crowd...." - not bad for being nationalistic... in fact, it will be supported by even half population of Canada, RIM will surely have (approx.) 17.5 million users... and that's only in Canada alone...

[FSeverino]

"This tablet has it all for both the business user and home life"

You have got to be kidding.

how so?

my uncle just brought his new ipad to my house. i downloaded the netflix app and signed in... he said there isnt that much selection. I told him he would be able to watch anything he wanted on the internet... if he bought a playbook.

every app he had on the ipad (including his business ones) could be done using the PBs web browser, or similar apps for the PB.

That means home and business wins for PB and a 'home' loss for the iPad.

Im sorry to burst your bubble... but I wont stand for false information

[kennyliu]

how so?

my uncle just brought his new ipad to my house. i downloaded the netflix app and signed in... he said there isnt that much selection. I told him he would be able to watch anything he wanted on the internet... if he bought a playbook.

every app he had on the ipad (including his business ones) could be done using the PBs web browser, or similar apps for the PB.

That means home and business wins for PB and a 'home' loss for the iPad.

Im sorry to burst your bubble... but I wont stand for false information

Just a few examples:

• search, annotate and sign a PDF;
• organize a conference call with people who don't own a Playbook and don't have Adobe Connect;
• create an Excel chart on the go;
• always stay online, logged in, and notified with your chat/conferencing/social networking app running a background service;
• use a third party organizer/to-do list with notifications.

Good luck with that.

[h20work]

how so?

my uncle just brought his new ipad to my house. i downloaded the netflix app and signed in... he said there isnt that much selection. I told him he would be able to watch anything he wanted on the internet... if he bought a playbook.

every app he had on the ipad (including his business ones) could be done using the PBs web browser, or similar apps for the PB.

That means home and business wins for PB and a 'home' loss for the iPad.

Im sorry to burst your bubble... but I wont stand for false information

Add an attachment to an email (if as a business user, you have thousands of photos, docs, etc)

Add a photo to contact (again with more than a few photos stored)

Rotate a photo without having to buy an app

All things I'm hoping get fixed soon. So because one person could do the same things on an ipad and a pb that makes it a win? I like the pb as much as anyone (have 3),but it's not quite business ready yet. My 9850 kicks it's a$$ in productivity.

[FSeverino]

Add an attachment to an email (if as a business user, you have thousands of photos, docs, etc)

This can EASILY be done using the desktop version of gmail through the browser...

Add a photo to contact (again with more than a few photos stored)

VERY EASY to do...

Rotate a photo without having to buy an app

Buy, or USE... there are FREE apps for that, and im not sure if it can be done without (on pb or ipad, as i have never had to)

All things I'm hoping get fixed soon. So because one person could do the same things on an ipad and a pb that makes it a win? I like the pb as much as anyone (have 3),but it's not quite business ready yet. My 9850 kicks it's a$$ in productivity.

How is going through thousands of pictures a business tool?
if its going through a lot of pictures to find one then there are VERY EASY ways to do that... i wont repost everything, but please read this thread for my posts starting on the bottomg of page 5

http://forums.crackberry.com/news-ru...06/index5.html

Again, there ARE things that the PB cannot do (as there ARE MANY things that EVERY device cannot do)... but saying that it CANNOT do things that IT CAN DO is wrong.

[h20work]

This can EASILY be done using the desktop version of gmail through the browser...


VERY EASY to do...



Buy, or USE... there are FREE apps for that, and im not sure if it can be done without (on pb or ipad, as i have never had to)



How is going through thousands of pictures a business tool?
if its going through a lot of pictures to find one then there are VERY EASY ways to do that... i wont repost everything, but please read this thread for my posts starting on the bottomg of page 5

http://forums.crackberry.com/news-ru...06/index5.html

Again, there ARE things that the PB cannot do (as there ARE MANY things that EVERY device cannot do)... but saying that it CANNOT do things that IT CAN DO is wrong.

OK, you are going to defend the pb, I get it... Email is supposed to be RIM's thing right? My 8703e, Storm 1 & 2, and now my 9850 do a much much better job.

As of now the file manager is a joke. There is no support for subfolders, the photo app will not let you do anything other than view a photo or delete it, adding a photo to a contact takes absolutely forever if you have more than a few hundred files.

I bought a 64gb to use for work. I have thousands of files, photos, etc on it, it's a 64gb right? Am I the only person in the world who would like to attach more than one file to an email? C'mon even Kevin said that the email and file manager weren't any good. I'll have to find the article, but it was something like "10 things bb10 needs to succeed"

[h20work]

And, why would I want to use Gmail? I have a work email account....

[kennyliu]

And, why would I want to use Gmail? I have a work email account....

It's a workaround

[h20work]

Okay FS, I read your posts.... I didn't see anything about the pb at all. Trust me, I'm anxiously awaiting bb10, and I'm very productive with my 9850. But if you believe the pb has anywhere near the productivity for business as a torch, bold, curve, etc then I'm not sure what to tell you.

Oh, I tried your Gmail solution: the same file manager opens and you still have to scroll through every single file, photo, doc, etc to find the one you want to attach. Want to attach another? Wash, rinse, repeat.... My solution? I just send attachments from my phone instead.

[h20work]

It's a workaround

LOL, I just posted how well that work around works

Open browser
Go to Gmail.com
Log in
Switch to desktop view
Compose new email
Click attach
Browse for file
Waste 30 mins to find file
Upload file to email
Click attach again
Browse for file
Waste another 30mins
Upload file
Send email

Seems legit

[bbmme]

I love my playbook!! I carry it everywhere eh. The 7in fits perfectly in my hand. I treally can't imagine holding anything bigger eh

[thelink74]

The navigation works great for many but how about ATT customers?

I was told that to tether, I had to get an additional plan for $50 a month to connect my Torch w/ PB.

True/ false?? Any ATT owners out there care to share how this can work w/o additional plan?

Thanks....

i use the bridge app provided by rroyy.com and can bridge my PlayBook to my Bold 9900 so i can surf the web on the PlayBook using my AT&T data plan at no extra charge. its really great...



Sent from my Amazing BlackBerry 9900

[Pearl9100]

Always a sad sign when an article ends with "let's all go buy one to show our support...."

Welfare status request for a woefully substandard device in an ultra competitive market.

Pretty bad. Think Chevy Volt.

Think Fisker too. Bleh!