Care to give me some of your thoughts?

I went from owning several Apple devices and was in the market for a tablet when I found a link for the Playbook; having not had much interest in mobile gaming and noting all the junk you have to sift through in the app store I figured I'd give the Playbook a chance as my primary reason for owning a tablet was internet browsing.

I received my device and when I got it set up I was simply floored. The device did what I wanted, when I wanted and I didn't have to root a single thing or find work-arounds like I did my iDevices with Cydia.

Fast forward nearly two years and I am still with this device and less two Apple products. My roommate has only ever owned an iPod Touch and is in the market for his very own tablet and I'm considering giving him my Playbook(giving, not selling) and either purchasing one with more space or simply moving on. As much as I love my tablet I am starting to feel the age of Playbook. The first hook was the components inside of the tablet, as those were not the standard back when I purchased it. Time has changed and now most new arrivals to the scene simply match or outperform the Playbook in terms of raw processing power. The second selling point was QNX. I still say this is the best mobile O/S in any device right now but with Windows 8 coming around the corner I'm not sure if QNX will have a strong case against it.

My questions:

Will there be a Playbook 2? If so, are there any rumors on the price? Specs?

How smooth will the Playbook run BB10 considering the age of the device? As it stands right now my system gets pretty bogged down. I've bought an app to close the android emulator which helps a ton but as soon as I get into heavy websites or youtube things slow right now again. I find that the lag starts around the 300m/b mark for free ram which annoys me to high .

Should I keep this device, does anyone know if the Nexus 7 would be a good companion tablet?

I love RIM and their devices. My next phone purchase will be a Blackberry but I'm unsure if upgrading right now is a wise choice considering what is currently being dangled in front of us. However I'm also feeling the age of my current tablet and to be honest not much has changed in the two years of owning it.

The only thing I've been really looking into is the Transformer Prime. As I said before I use tablets for internet(wifi. i own a mifi) so raw power is important for me.

Nice to hear you are enjoying it.. I don't think there is nething out bout Playbook2.. but there is a 10inch bb10 device planned at some point.. that may be the playbook2..

Ok, again this is opinion. I too have had Apple & Android products - but now find myself here, a champion of the PB above all else for good reason. Having previously had to use cydia / root on android I was stunned to be able to do the same things with no tinkering required on PB.

I'll answer your questions as best I can.

1. Will there be a playbook2? Most likely. The 4G/LTE is an indication of an update to the tablet, including integrated 4G and improved processor. But overall it runs the same OS and it an extension of something which is a solid performer. If it ain't broke, don't fix it comes to mind. QNX is still a damn good operating system. The update to 2.1 brings new possibilities, and its already been confirmed that PB will upgrade to BB10 when released in Q1 2013 (or thereabouts given RIM's own laxity of hitting deadlines!).

The lag you find on heavy websites, i'm sorry but I think the PB is much better at handling web-based data loads than any android / ipad i've used. Android was / is the worst culprit in terms of memory management / lag, noting the need for so many different memory managers, task killers, app cleaners, etc. If it gets laggy simply delete the cache in the browser. That's all you really need in PB - I do more on mine than I ever did on the Android or iPad & find it more effective & again without the need for any 3rd party apps to help manage memory, battery life, rogue launching apps, etc etc.

2. Your question about keeping the PB or getting an N7 - there's a whole thread on this in the forum. Personally, and I say personally, it is not worth it. If you're looking to upgrade, grab a 64GB PB for the price they're at now. Peformance wise jellybean has been found just as memory hungry as ICS and GB on Android, multitasking is still not great (and not as clean), and in essence I ask - what can the N7 do that the PB can't (ok bar Skype and Netflix)? You should either keep the device or grab the larger capacity.

I see the PB sticking around for a while to be honest. The 4GLTE shows the intention, and BB10 will breathe new life. I for one will not be going back, having already gone through ipad, arnova (2 of them), cube, and various other tablets. Age is irrelevant - PB can still cope with much more than others, no other tablet can run another OS side-by-side, and 2.1 will expand this with android camera use.

So there's my opinion. Take it as you will. And I don't even own a BB phone, i'm an android mobile user!

How smooth will the Playbook run BB10 considering the age of the device? As it stands right now my system gets pretty bogged down.

Mine runs quite smoothly. The PB OS is already QNX, so we know it can handle it well. BB10 should be a much more refined and optimized OS, using lessons learned from PBOS. The PB seems like pretty much a dev platform for BB10, and legacy support for an almost-2-year-old device speaks volumes about RIM's confidence in QNX's micro-kernel efficiency.

Good points guys, I only just picked up my second berry device now (PB). I don't mind that it's a year or nearly 2 old, and not the latest tech, but it's got some decent tech and the OS is pretty solid. I also like the solid build of the tablet. I actually chose to get a PB over a Nexus 7 (I may also get a Nexus 7 soon), but definitely glad I got a PB, as I said, it's really solid and is awesome for biz use (presentations) (at least for me). :cool:

On the Nexus 7... The apps look far better than on the PB and you'd have a lot more of them. That is pretty much it imho.

It is a great device and if you happen to have an Android phone, it can pair with the tablet in a very PlayBook's Bridge way (yes, I mean it. The Nexus 7 is the PlayBook of Android.).

So, it is a matter of app support and beauty versus performance. Both a solid devices.

A BB10 tablet is ought to happen sometime, maybe the 10' PlayBook, maybe something else. I'd be willing to bet it will have specs similar to the A-Series.