[elbo]

All depends on what you are planning to do and what you anticipate over the lifespan of how long you want to use the device.

What is funny is people who shell out $500 for a brand new iPad and all they do is surf the web, read some books, watch a movie and play Angry Birds.... when any cheap tablet will do, or even a much more capable laptop/netbook.

Could not agree more.

[reschp]

'Cause I said so.

Sorry, I get that from my mother.

[bay1902]

you get it as its the best out imo. I've had an ipad, 2 different android tabs and moved gleefully to a pb this week. why? firstly the price in my country was so good for the 64gb version, meaning no mucking about with sd card. second, whilst I like playing around with root, etc its actually nice not to be able or actually need to. third, build quality, just sexy imo. fourth, great battery life. fifh,ability to use android apps via sideloaeing. the list goes on. multitasking, flash working,etc.

ok the app store aint great but if u look around you will find tons of goodies, and converting apk to bar is so easy there's and online converter.

as I said the ipad was ok, I love androie but the arnovas I had were dreadful on battery, wifi, flash, etc. I took my 10bg3 back for a refund, and I even had a custom rom on it and pb outperforms in every way.

my 2p but I wouldn't go back, even if there are haters out there. just can't wait for the next update to the os!

edit, meant to add its also damn easy to use pdatablet on adroid to tether to my galaxy ace, another added bonus for on the go connection

[FF22]

'Cause I said so.

Sorry, I get that from my mother.

Ah, brother OR sister!

[goku_vegeta]

Everything here is subjective and your personal opinion, which is fine...except for this:
Screen: PB screen is bright and gorgeous! Pixel density is almost as good as retina display. Way better then IPAD 2.

In no way, can you compare a 1024*600 7" screen to a "retina" display. ~170PPI is not even close to "retina" quality. The playbook screen is below average when compared to almost anything else out there right now.

He said iPad 2. The iPad 2 has 132 PPI. Screen resolution of 1024x768 with a 9.7 inch screen. Compare that to the 169 PPI density of the PlayBook. Its definitely a bit of a nicer display.

[mikeo007]

He said iPad 2. The iPad 2 has 132 PPI. Screen resolution of 1024x768 with a 9.7 inch screen. Compare that to the 169 PPI density of the PlayBook. Its definitely a bit of a nicer display.

Re-read what you quoted. He said it was almost as good as a "retina" display. Which it is not.

[goku_vegeta]

Re-read what you quoted. He said it was almost as good as a "retina" display. Which it is not.

All he said was it was better than the iPad 2 display. Granted the iPad 2 display isn't terrible per se but the PlayBook screen is definitely better from my testing. The wide screen aspect ratio allows for better playback of HD content as well as the pixel density is a bit higher and to me it gives a noticeable improvement.

[mikeo007]

All he said was it was better than the iPad 2 display. Granted the iPad 2 display isn't terrible per se but the PlayBook screen is definitely better from my testing. The wide screen aspect ratio allows for better playback of HD content as well as the pixel density is a bit higher and to me it gives a noticeable improvement.

Dude, are you blind or just trolling?
Maybe this will help your seeing problems.
He even wrote a post afterwards admitting he was mistaking about the retina comment.

I can tell you the best features I like about my PB BB combo:

1. BB bridge: yes you set it once and forget about it, then you will have internet access all the time, automatically switching between bridge and wifi if avaliable.
2. Screen: PB screen is bright and gorgeous! Pixel density is almost as good as retina display. Way better then IPAD 2.
3. Gesture: Simple but effective and nature. You will get it in 10 minutes, and a few days later you will find yourself swiping your finger on your spouse's ipad and puzzled why nothing happens.
4. Multi tasking: you will show off this feature to your friends all the time. The app switching becomes a pleasure instead of a pain.
5. 7" form factor. You may fit it in your pocket (uncomfortable but works) or a hand bag in you are a lady. The bottom line is the portability, the industry is just beginning to catch up.
6. price point and future BB10 free upgrade

Another thing you may hear quite often is the "poor" app selection of PB. Honest I do feel that way 6 monthes ago, but not anymore. In the recent 6 months the app world has grown exponentially. I have gone from complaining about apps, to be crazy about sideloaded apps, to not really care about sideloaded apps any more. So it's fair to say that PB's app selection is smaller than other ecosystems, but it's not poor any more... for me anyway.


Sent from my BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps using Tapatalk 2

[BigAl_BB9900]

Hello guys & gals,

I have a BB phone and want to get a tablet, so my first inclination is to get a Playbook - but why should I pick it over, say, an Android tablet?

This is not an obtuse question, I genuinely want to find out what makes a PB so essential for BB fans. My 9360 is the first BB I have ever owned and I will not be going back to any other make unless there is a seriously compelling reason.

I will be using my PB for social media, I blog a lot and am also a writer so is this something the PB would be able to handle? How will my BB pair with my PB and will they be seamlessly synced once paired up? Is the media output good? Is the video in HD, for example?

Sorry if these questions seem a bit lame but with 64gb PBs at �129 at PC World, I do not want to miss out.

Any help you can give me would be really appreciated.

Regards
Stuart

Hi Stuart

A quick response from a Bristol/Somerset lad (now relocated to the big smoke for work...)

For everything you have stated, the BB can either do it out of the box, or via the purchase of some very inexpensive apps. If you write a lot you may want to use a BlueTooth keyboard as well - there is the official RIM PB BT keyboard, but a lot of people use 3rd party ones as well (the official BT keyboard is a little small for stubby fingered touch-typists like myself)

When you get your PB and can't figure out how to do something, just search on this forum, and you will almost always find a solution, workaround or a suggestion of which pertinent app(s) to buy (most are �1 or �2). If you can't an answer from searching crackberry, then ask nicely, and lots of helpful people will give good advice (for example, if you want to seamlessly transfer your contacts to the PB, you may need to just set up a gmail account and install the account on both your BB & PB)

Just in case you are not aware, the PB does NOT currently support Skype!

fyi - the video IS HD, and I frequently connect my PB to hotel room tv's via an HDMI cable, so I can watch my own DVDs (digitised and copied to my PB) when I am travelling (instead of being forced to watch whatever overpriced movies the hotel is flogging that month)

I hope you order your PB today and then it will be a doubly good day for N. Somerset (as the Frome Flyer won the Belgian Grand Prix this afternoon!)

Good luck, hope you enjoy your purchase

Alex

[diegonei]

Would be nice to wait and see what the OP will report when he comes back.

He surely has enough info (provided he can filter the petty fighting) to start his research by now...

[StueyMac40]

Hi everyone,

Firstly can I thank everyone for the information and detailed answers to my question. Now I expect you are all itching to know what I am going to do.....

I have just reserved my PB online and am going to pick it up tomorrow morning!!! I can't wait!!

All of you made some really excellent points and I know I will be coming back to pick peoples brains about the best way to do things and to recommend apps that will assist me in using my PB to its full potential. I am still a BB newbie and I am sure there are many things I can do to make my life simpler and use the BB/PB technology to its fullest potential.

I'll be back tomorrow to let you know how I have got on and, no doubt, have loads of questions that need answering. Thanks once again, you have all been amazing!

Cheers
Stuart

[StueyMac40]

Bought mine to play .mp3 files. Does a ton of other stuff as well. The interface is very nice. Nice browser. Great speakers. Today loaded up some emulators and fired up all the early video games from when they were new 30 years ago. PB does a zillion things. If it does what you want get it. Pretty much the best $248 I ever spent on a piece of tech and I am buying more.

Hi Glam,

Can you recommend the emulators you find the best and where can I find the games to play on them? thanks.

[aha]

Thanks once again, you have all been amazing!

Cheers
Stuart

Glad we can help, Stuart.

sent from my PB with tapatalk 2

[diegonei]

Hi Glam,

Can you recommend the emulators you find the best and where can I find the games to play on them? thanks.

Good to the Apps & Games board and start reading about sideloading. If you google, you'll find probably 90% of all games ever made.

http://forums.crackberry.com/blackbe...t-forums-f242/

Hope you enjoy your PlayBook!

[bdegrande]

Dude, are you blind or just trolling?
Maybe this will help your seeing problems.
He even wrote a post afterwards admitting he was mistaking about the retina comment.

And both of his statements were incorrect. The PlayBook's ppi are far closer to the iPad 2's than the iPad 3's retina display, so a more accurate statement would have been slightly better than the iPad 2 and nowhere near as good as the retina display.

[TerranceW.]

Hello guys & gals,

I have a BB phone and want to get a tablet, so my first inclination is to get a Playbook - but why should I pick it over, say, an Android tablet?

This is not an obtuse question, I genuinely want to find out what makes a PB so essential for BB fans. My 9360 is the first BB I have ever owned and I will not be going back to any other make unless there is a seriously compelling reason.

I will be using my PB for social media, I blog a lot and am also a writer so is this something the PB would be able to handle? How will my BB pair with my PB and will they be seamlessly synced once paired up? Is the media output good? Is the video in HD, for example?

Sorry if these questions seem a bit lame but with 64gb PBs at �129 at PC World, I do not want to miss out.

Any help you can give me would be really appreciated.

Regards
Stuart

Do not get a BB Playbook, Get the Asus Nexus 7 by Google. It completely blows the Playbook out the water and that's saying a lot coming from me. Other than the speakers and the cameras the PB can't compete. I just got through playing Dead Trigger, and Shine Runner and I was wowed by the performance. I have my cpu overcolcked to 1.7Ghz, and my gpu @520Mhz. I loved my PB, but I'm over it.

[TerranceW.]

And I have to honestly say that after being one of it's staunchest supporters, I don't miss flash at all.

[twstd.reality]

Do not get a BB Playbook, Get the Asus Nexus 7 by Google. It completely blows the Playbook out the water and that's saying a lot coming from me. Other than the speakers and the cameras the PB can't compete. I just got through playing Dead Trigger, and Shine Runner and I was wowed by the performance. I have my cpu overcolcked to 1.7Ghz, and my gpu @520Mhz. I loved my PB, but I'm over it.

how's the portrait only mode when you hit the home button? That really annoyed me - especially when switching between tasks.

[kdeckels]

It's a good tablet to make the jump for the price. Really.....If you decide you like a tablet in general, but want more apps or a bigger format factor, you haven't sunk a lot of money into the venture. One thing you won't find is what the PB offers at it's price point in another tablet. You also already have a BB phone, so you'll enjoy the bridging feature.
Several times I've looked at ipads, then I see the price. I guess that ecosystem really is expensive.

[bdegrande]

Do not get a BB Playbook, Get the Asus Nexus 7 by Google. It completely blows the Playbook out the water and that's saying a lot coming from me. Other than the speakers and the cameras the PB can't compete. I just got through playing Dead Trigger, and Shine Runner and I was wowed by the performance. I have my cpu overcolcked to 1.7Ghz, and my gpu @520Mhz. I loved my PB, but I'm over it.

Other than the speakers, and the cameras, and the HDMI out, and the build quality, and the ability to not be limited to 16GB (you can now get a 64GB PlayBook for the same price as an 8GB Nexus 7). I also prefer the PlayBook's OS, although that is persobal preference, but the PlayBook has had one major OS upgrade and will have another to BB10, while Android OS upgrades are very hit and miss.

I would say that the PlayBook has much better hardware, the Nexus 7 much better software availability. It depends whether the PlayBook will do the things you want it to do. If it is writing and social media, it absolutely will, For me, I wanted a media playback device, and with 64GB and HDMI out, the PlayBook was far better than the Nexus 7.

[glamrlama]

Hi Glam,

Can you recommend the emulators you find the best and where can I find the games to play on them? thanks.

The GameBoyAdvance emu is good. My kids get to play their old faves and I get to play Advanced Wars and ditch my device. Search this site and you will find lots of support for the VBAm-PB emu which I think was ported by a member here. Plays most games my kids have thrown at it. Sound is sometimes choppy.

The PlayStation One emulator is incredible. Can't believe how smooth it is. The PCSX-PB emu again was I think ported by a member here. I threw all the old golden age video game compilations at it and most of them appear to be running emulators within the PS1. They reproduction of the graphics and sound is exactly as I remember it from 30 years ago.

Emulators need sideloaded. Instructions are on this site as well. A number of other systems that I never owned are also emulated on PB so search about these forums and you will find the info for them. I can't say how well they work but the above 2 are essential apps for me.

Google is your friend; type in your system name and the software title you want the ROM for and you should find what you need.

[TerranceW.]

There's an app called Ultimate Rotator that solves that issue. And because of the aspect ratio of the Nexus 7 the portrait mode works quite well by the way.

[goku_vegeta]

Dude, are you blind or just trolling?
Maybe this will help your seeing problems.
He even wrote a post afterwards admitting he was mistaking about the retina comment.

Yeah, just what we need on crackberry.com, people like you. FYI I'm NOT blind I just happened to skim through the pages and didn't catch that. So no I do NOT have vision problems as if I did I could not be writing these posts.

[Unbiased Tech]

Hey, I have a curve 9350 and I'm in college so I can definitely see where you're coming from. My answer is absolutely and it really just completes the Curve. The Curve is great for communication and social apps as well as a great keyboard and the PlayBook is great with all of the Curve's weaknesses and then some.

At 129 it is an absolute steal. You will find this bundled app called print to go will be extremely useful to you and the BB bridge remote will be really good for writers. Personally, I can see the PB predictive text keyboard as extremely fast and efficient to type on especially in portrait.

There are great fun/arcade games but you may have to be willing to spend between .99 and 6.99 for great HD games

There are other really good apps and the PB is incredibly smooth, and having both devices will just make you feel like you're living in the perfect BB experience....at least until BB10...

Hope that helped
ps the PB is getting BB10 in probably Q2 of next year

[jonno_atamaniuk]

Well I'm glad to hear the OP decided on the tablet that would best work for them. OP, you won't be disappointed with your purchase choice, especially given how functional the PB is on its own, and how much more functional it becomes when you bridge it with any BlackBerry device. Depending your lifestyle, you may find yourself blogging / writing from more places than you did before, simply because you will have a device that not only lets you see what you're typing on a larger screen than the Blackberry did, but also because it's a gorgeous device that you'll feel comfortable pulling out anywhere. You can type using the onscreen keyboard, using a Bluetooth keyboard, or using your BlackBerry as a keyboard (I've done it a few times, it's really not bad). For the times when you want to show off something, plug it into a TV via a micro HDMI cable, and you've got an instant display of, well, your display.... which you can control from your BlackBerry through the Bridge. Great for when you want to show off parts of your blog to some friends and family who don't get to view it often, or when looking for input... or when you want to play a movie or two on a bigger screen too.

However you end up using it, enjoy your tablet!