[nextcity]

1. Flash.

2. High Screen Brightness.

3. Front Facing Loud Speakers.

4. Price.

5. Build Quality.

And one more...SWIPE to wake the screen.

I own a ton of tablets. The PlayBook and my Ipad 4 are the only tablets I could not live happily without.

[Halpino54]

Totally agree

[Spencerdl]

AGREED.....Good Observation

[duggar62]

1. Flash.

2. High Screen Brightness.

3. Front Facing Loud Speakers.

4. Price.

5. Build Quality.

And one more...SWIPE to wake the screen.

I own a ton of tablets. The PlayBook and my Ipad 4 are the only tablets I could not live happily without.

06 hdmi out

[kdeckels]

07 You can't leave out Bridge.

[ralfyguy]

Yeah, it actually has LOUDspeaker(S)! And yes, BRIDGE!

[FSeverino]

agreed... but i HATE the 5 minute time-out max with no option to keep the screen on.
when i have it docked and want to use it as a sports score updater/tracker it always times out

[BlackStormRising]

Bridge only works with BlackBerry phones - his list is a general one for every tablet fan.
Kudos to the OP for omitting native email

Ditto on the HDMI out.

[blueberrymerry]

Bluetooth DUN for non-Blackberry users, it lets you share the Internet connection without the power drain of a Wi-fi hotspot. No other tablet I know has this out of the box. Works well with my Nokia phone

[Aut-Lin37]

number one for me is definitely the swipe to wake up feature!

[joshua_sx1]

1. Flash.

All Android tablets can get flash, even with latest OS... if they want it to...

2. High Screen Brightness.

It is probably depends on individual eye preferences... but for me, retina screen is one of the best screen - specifically for reading... super amoled is next...

3. Front Facing Loud Speakers.

I got Galaxy Note 10.1... so, I have 2 devices with front speakers... and yeah, not only that they make sense for putting those stereo speakers in front but they are excellent in gaming and media playing such as music and videos

4. Price.

I couldn't disagree... but with same price as tablets having quadcore and 2GB RAM, it is still a little bit expensive, in my opinion...

5. Build Quality.

Without considering the price, iDevices are really build with quality...

And one more...SWIPE to wake the screen.

AGREED! including the HDMI output (although some tablets has already that feature)...

Nevertheless, one excellent factor in PlayBook is its current OS i.e. QNX... and the incoming BB10 will make it even better... other than that, I don’t think that PlayBook will be superior with other current tablets now available in the market... again, that is my personal views...

[Strikkie]

We almost forgot the keyboard, typing is much better and faster than on ipad / driodz

And how about true multitasking... Havent seen an ipad doing that!

[Sriman]

Completely agree with everything stated above... PB is a great tablet... Haven't experienced the bridge yet because I dont have a BB phone... But will get one soon and will try that too...

[sad_old_man]

Completely agree with everything stated above... PB is a great tablet... Haven't experienced the bridge yet because I dont have a BB phone... But will get one soon and will try that too...

Try it on my phone if you want. I like the on/off switch that it comes with as well!

[fiatlux01]

Completely agree with the above, even though for me the biggest bonus is the nice integration of the native mail/calendar/contacts apps, which feel more mature than on iOS or Android.

Now, I don't use my PB quite as much as my iPad 3G for the following reasons:

- my iPad has 3G, my PB is WiFi only
- I have an iPhone, not a BB phone
- battery life should be much better
- WiFi sensitivity is on the low side
- GPS sensitivity is appalling

Hopefully, BB 10 is going to revive my interest in the tablet. Who knows, I might even one day get a BB phone when that time will have come to replace my iPhone...

[sad_old_man]

Completely agree with the above, even though for me the biggest bonus is the nice integration of the native mail/calendar/contacts apps, which feel more mature than on iOS or Android.

Now, I don't use my PB quite as much as my iPad 3G for the following reasons:

- my iPad has 3G, my PB is WiFi only
- I have an iPhone, not a BB phone
- battery life should be much better
- WiFi sensitivity is on the low side
- GPS sensitivity is appalling

Hopefully, BB 10 is going to revive my interest in the tablet. Who knows, I might even one day get a BB phone when that time will have come to replace my iPhone...

You don't actually need a bb phone if your phone is capable of being a wifi hotspot. My wife has a Samsung SIII and her pb connect into it via wifi hotspot. It is blisteringly (is that a word) fast on Internet browsing.

Please bear in mind that I did have a bottle of 'Gauthier Reserve Famile 10 Year Old Cognac' in front of me at the time I set it up for her!

I find it helps!

[SifJar]

We almost forgot the keyboard, typing is much better and faster than on ipad / driodz

And how about true multitasking... Havent seen an ipad doing that!

The Playbook keyboard is a custom version of the SwiftKey keyboard, which is available for Android. Functions in pretty much the exact same way as the PB one, albeit with extra updates the PB one never received (most recently, there is "flow" for Swype like text entry, where you draw a line over all the letters of a word, and it guesses the word you meant).

iOS keyboard is mediocre, and can only be replaced with jailbreaking.

[dmlis]

Bluetooth DUN for non-Blackberry users, it lets you share the Internet connection without the power drain of a Wi-fi hotspot. No other tablet I know has this out of the box. Works well with my Nokia phone

Unfortunately, it doesn't work with some other phones.

[Wongsky]

You don't actually need a bb phone if your phone is capable of being a wifi hotspot.

Doesn't even need to be a WiFi hotspot, since the PlayBook supports tethering over bluetooth.

[Wongsky]

Unfortunately, it doesn't work with some other phones.

Well if your handset doesn't support bluetooth tethering, and isn't capable of providing a WiFi hotspot (either natively, or with add-on software) you are probably out of luck - but that's got to be quite rare, these days, for a smartphone, with decent 3G support?

Which handset did you have in mind?

[sad_old_man]

The Playbook keyboard is a custom version of the SwiftKey keyboard, which is available for Android. Functions in pretty much the exact same way as the PB one, albeit with extra updates the PB one never received (most recently, there is "flow" for Swype like text entry, where you draw a line over all the letters of a word, and it guesses the word you meant).

iOS keyboard is mediocre, and can only be replaced with jailbreaking.

Here I go again about to learn something incredible from this fantastic forum.

"Why would I need/want to draw lines above my text as I type?

[djpailo]

Here is the major reason for me:

I can actually multi-task without closing programs. I can have Adobe pdfs open and take notes in evernote. On my android phone, it would sometimes work, but other times the document would close or go back to the start etc etc. Its just A LOT easier on playbook.

There are no doubt, better features on other devices. But collectively I think the only major reason someone wouldn't but the playbook now is the app store. Personally I don't use many apps so its not a big thing for me. BB10 should fix those problems and make it a viable cheap tablet for others. But since it was released nearly two years ago, it will never be a major hit. The new playbooks however, could be, particularly if they are built as well as our current one.

Overall? As a package, I don't think many tablets could beat this for what I need it for and at that price.

[Wongsky]

Here I go again about to learn something incredible from this fantastic forum.

"Why would I need/want to draw lines above my text as I type?

That's how they swype style keyboard apps work - you sort of swipe through some characters / letters on the on-screen keyboard, and it's supposed to get the word you want to type.

[Wongsky]

Here is the major reason for me:

I can actually multi-task without closing programs. I can have Adobe pdfs open and take notes in evernote. On my android phone, it would sometimes work, but other times the document would close or go back to the start etc etc. Its just A LOT easier on playbook.

There are no doubt, better features on other devices. But collectively I think the only major reason someone wouldn't but the playbook now is the app store. Personally I don't use many apps so its not a big thing for me. BB10 should fix those problems and make it a viable cheap tablet for others. But since it was released nearly two years ago, it will never be a major hit. The new playbooks however, could be, particularly if they are built as well as our current one.

Overall? As a package, I don't think many tablets could beat this for what I need it for and at that price.

Agreed with the multi-tasking thing.

As to the app store - well I don't have loads of apps installed on my PlayBook. For that matter, I don't have loads of apps installed on my Android tablets, either. I have a few, select apps that fulfill the needs I have, and I tend to not clutter things up any further. Truth be told, that seems more of a problem on Android, really - found the more apps I had installed initially, were either a distraction, or never used, or simply cluttered up the interface. I only install anything, now, that I will actually use, and over time, I sometimes prune what little I have installed.

I follow much the same principles on my smartphone, too - as that seems to perform at it's best when there's not too many things installed.

[sad_old_man]

That's how they swype style keyboard apps work - you sort of swipe through some characters / letters on the on-screen keyboard, and it's supposed to get the word you want to type.

OMG, I tried for weeks to get my desktop to do that by running my fingers along the keys. It came up with lots of characters but it didn't mean anything, well not that a human being could understand. I worked out that it was the keyboard that couldn't spell so I bought a new one. I've just tried it on my pb and guess what, it produces the same indecipherable characters that my desktop did. Please tell me this is not another long learning curve again like it was when I learned to spell as a child!