[Tim Heard]

One of our daughters uses mine instead of an Amazon Kindle, and loves it.

Originally, I bought it on sale, and gave it to my wife, who never used it. Then I took it back, and only occasionally used it.
Despite clearly being well made, the slow boot-up time was maddening, and I just never did find much use for it.

Maybe if I had bought a keyboard to go with it and there had been an email app...

[Zidentia]

"The lonely TOUCHPAD says welcome friend to the poorly marketed and little loved devices home."

Seriously I think the recent article by the Globe pinpoints the real issue with the Playbook. They created it for the wrong reasons and never fully created a team to manage and develop the Playbook into a viable product. It was a test device for QNX that become unwieldy and Thorsten, unwisely, put the company resources into cellular products that underwhelmed when they should have shook the ground and showed the engineering prowess of the RIM team. I have argued since day one that the company needed to take a different path and tablets are the key to the strategy as the mixed PC market becomes fully realized.

I came to Blackberry from a long relationship with Windows phones used in corporate and personal use. The problems with these are well documented but they did continue to try to innovate even if it was incremental. Blackberry did innovate but in a vacuum of information release. The only people that knew were current users. Blackberry devices do their primary job very well and were designed with a common sense approach. The marketing team at RIM was simply terrible at what they were tasked to do. One mistake they made was creating too many new devices. They should have used the funds from the development of those and funneled it into a massive and well made ad campaign that clearly showed the superiority of even BBOS let alone BB10 over some current smartphone software. If they would have trimmed the offering to one and then used the increased sales to develop the next one while still marketing the first they would have more time to "get it right" as far as what the market expects.

I have mixed feeling about the future of BB especially in regards to the direction and who, if any, may finally own them. I still love my old Bold and my Playbook is my go to device even with the issues it now has but I have consider my long term strategy also. My Bold is in need of retirement but refuses to die. I need a new phone but like any informed consumer i need to know I will have support and a reasonable expectation of quality. In addition I am in favor of the ecosystem so my life is simplified some what and I need to consider what the manufacturer of my next phone does or does not offer in the way of tablets as I expect some form of compatibility.

At this point I seriously cannot consider Blackberry due to the volatile nature of their existence. I am seriously looking at going back to Microsoft as they are rounding out the hardware offerings for tablets/hybrids. To be fair though I am not sold on Nokia phones as a serious business use phone. There are no phones out there as good and intuitive as the Blackberry phone is or was. So I wait until the market shakes out to get a better perspective on what I should do. I wish Blackberry well but I am not feeling any positivity on what is coming from them yet.

[Zidentia]

One of our daughters uses mine instead of an Amazon Kindle, and loves it.

Originally, I bought it on sale, and gave it to my wife, who never used it. Then I took it back, and only occasionally used it.
Despite clearly being well made, the slow boot-up time was maddening, and I just never did find much use for it.

Maybe if I had bought a keyboard to go with it and there had been an email app...

Motorola makes an excellent BT keyboard that works well for the PB and is low cost. Check Amazon.

[David Murray1]

The PlayBook will take over the world! Just you wait and see

[GoJaysGo]

The future of the PlayBook is called an iPad or Nexxus 7,10, etc. In other words, there is zero future for this disaster. "Amateur hour is over", remember. Keep moving.

[Fuzz360]

Just because it isn't a market leader, doesn't make it any less of a peice of kit!
Its not like amount units in use direcly effect their performance in any way is it? :|

[Kendall Oei]

Are you sure my Playbook won't stop working if BBRY goes under? LOL.

[playbookster]

the future of the playbook is storing my music for camping trips and sitting on my desk on its charging stand as a clock with some weather on the side.

[Fuzz360]

Are you sure my Playbook won't stop working if BBRY goes under? LOL.

******* hell no! You've seen the contingecy plan put in effect already! Now BBM has gone cross platform the BBRY servers can perpetuate in even the worst case scenario. We may have to share cracked Android apps on here if it all goes belly up for developers but they ain't all just gona freeze up and stop working, mostly because they'd be liable for compensation, same with our phones, services cannot just halt without a fail safe, we'd be able to sue for the cost of a similar handset and service subscription fee.

I tell you one similar use I have to Mr Playbooker is as my mp3 conduit in my car, and I may have just been sold that stand by your post alone man can you watch MP4s like the old Bolds and Storms in stand mode? I know the answers yes. I just wana hear you say it!

[moonhacker]

They could do so much more. But of course it's just too awesome to make a product better than it should be.

Posted via CB10

It would be the right thing to do. That's not BB theme anymore.

[Tim Heard]

That ship has sailed. It belongs to my daughter now, and she says she doesn't need a keyboard. I bought a Dell XPS 13 and am coming to grips with how crappy it is.

Motorola makes an excellent BT keyboard that works well for the PB and is low cost. Check Amazon.

[Zidentia]

Well, good luck with it. I am looking at the Surface and even thinking of going with an HP tablet
.

That ship has sailed. It belongs to my daughter now, and she says she doesn't need a keyboard. I bought a Dell XPS 13 and am coming to grips with how crappy it is.

[JasW]

The PlayBook will take over the world! Just you wait and see

The only thing the PB will take over is the $50 and under tablet category on eBay.

[msps]

Well, good luck with it. I am looking at the Surface and even thinking of going with an HP tablet
.

Surface is a rip off.

Dell latitude tablet 10 is reasonably priced,
Their outlet sells refurbished units with remove able battery, 3g modem, 128GB RAM for under $300

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

The only thing the PB will take over is the $50 and under tablet category on eBay.

Not worth the time at that point.....

I think there are a few enterprise customers with egg on their face that are still in the market for additional devices... so prices have stayed up there. Very surprised that you can still get a PlayBook new even at this point.

[Zidentia]

Dells are junk

Surface is a rip off.

Dell latitude tablet 10 is reasonably priced,
Their outlet sells refurbished units with remove able battery, 3g modem, 128GB RAM for under $300

[island par]

I am by no means a techie guy but as my playbook is right now, i can still use it for work (email, docs, excel sheets, do PowerPoint presentations, schedule work, etc.) and play (surf the web, play games, listen to music, watch movies), so its still plenty useful and as most of the posters here mentioned i will continue to use it till it conks out on me or if the developers of the applications on it stop supporting it and render it a dead brick.

But i do hope if and when somebody buys BB, that this tablet be given a chance again and this time put a lot more effort in getting it right the first time and selling / marketing it better.

[Anjohl]

Playbook is fine. I just bought a Galaxy Tab 2, which was a highly rated tablet, and I am appalled at how cheap the build quality is compared to the Playbook.

I could see migrating over to the Nexus line, but god damn, that PB OS is so sexy...like having Julianne Moore all done up for a night on the town, and just sitting there staring at her.

[eggman1987]

I love it but it is slow now due to it being old. I also think the design of several app interfaces are absolutely awful and takes away the prestigious feeling of this prestigious device.

I'm getting the Dell Venue Pro 8 when it comes out soon. Lovely Windows 8.1 tablet that looks professional like the PlayBook.

Posted via CB10

[Anonymous9286410]

please pick one of the options below which matches your current enthusiam for it:

1
Lazaridis and Fregin will buy Blackberry back and send us a tablet
free of choice in return for our PBs.

2
Playbook will end up on car boot sales or srcap like the Palm handhelds
and the contributions in this forum will slash down same as the price does
for it eventually.

[BoloMKXXVIII]

The battery in my Playbook doesn't hold a charge very long anymore. Was using it to play music during dinner last night (screen off) and during the course of dinner it lost 20% of its charge. Dinner was less than an hour. If I have to use it plugged in all the time it will become even less useful. I guess Christmas shopping season might be a good time to evaluate my options.

[9Jer99]

Playbook's past is well known, a kind of open book, but can anyone, any of us, predict what Playbook's future will be?

I think it can be describe quite simply : Lead Balloon

[Bend Sinister]

I got my 64g playbook last month for cheap and love it for what it does. I'm in a coffee shop with it now as its tethered to my Zed. dead easy to do and no issues. I use it for browsing, reading pdfs, playing music on and as a media player. its nice and small too so it goes easily in my bag. not as good as my ipad, but I got a lot for my �75.

[Fuzz360]

Indeed!

Its a shed load of bang for your buck!
And if ANYONE is truly that upset about having one,.... send it my way and your PB will live out its days in bliss!

[jpash549]

I got my 64g playbook last month for cheap and love it for what it does. I'm in a coffee shop with it now as its tethered to my Zed. dead easy to do and no issues. I use it for browsing, reading pdfs, playing music on and as a media player. its nice and small too so it goes easily in my bag. not as good as my ipad, but I got a lot for my �75.

Maybe good for different things. If your iPad was so much better you could just get a bigger bag. Why the good/bad comparison. We all know about the great app orchard the iPad has. And it is a fine machine.

But welcome to the BB forum and enjoy your PB for what it will do. And try Origami browser. Get a fast travel charger.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using CB Forums mobile app