[mmveets]

I realize this has been discussed elsewhere and the general concensus, based on clues in BB10 promotional materials and talks, is that the Playbook is not being abandoned by Blackberry, and will be updated to BB10 sometime after BB10 phones launch. That would be great, of course.

But if that's true, then why the fire sale on all of the Playbook accessories? Why would the rapid charger be going for $11 today if there are going to be more playbooks sold in the future? Is it just a matter of these retailers managing their inventory? Wouldn't RIM take them back from the retailers in order to sell them for a good profit in the future? I don't know much about supply chain management and marketing, but this seems like strong evidence that the Playbook is going to die off, or that if some "Playbook" tablet will exist in the future then it won't use the same accessories.

[Superfly_FR]

I realize this has been discussed elsewhere and the general concensus, based on clues in BB10 promotional materials and talks, is that the Playbook is not being abandoned by Blackberry, and will be updated to BB10 sometime after BB10 phones launch. That would be great, of course.

But if that's true, then why the fire sale on all of the Playbook accessories? Why would the rapid charger be going for $11 today if there are going to be more playbooks sold in the future? Is it just a matter of these retailers managing their inventory? Wouldn't RIM take them back from the retailers in order to sell them for a good profit in the future? I don't know much about supply chain management and marketing, but this seems like strong evidence that the Playbook is going to die off, or that if some "Playbook" tablet will exist in the future then it won't use the same accessories.

4G / LTE and 3G+ models are still hot from the factory ... I strongly doubt they'd have released them if PlayBook was EOL ...

[peter9477]

... this seems like strong evidence that the Playbook is going to die off, or that if some "Playbook" tablet will exist in the future then it won't use the same accessories.

So what you're saying is it's strong evidence of something, but we have no idea of what... I can agree with that. ;-)

[oilgeo10]

I have two dock chargers and two rapid chargers, all bought at various sale prices including $14 last week at Staples. I hope the BB10 phones will use the same magnetic charging port design/size, it will be another reason to consider upgrading.

[axllebeer]

Considering that the PlayBook hardwear is good enough to run pretty much any current mobile OS, I don't think it will be going anywhere unless RIM fails with BB10.

Consider the following;
How many older Android devices run similar hardwear more or less, and are still being supported with software updates.

Or how about the latest and greatest (grain of salt) from Apple, the IPad mini? It has similar processing power but 1/2 the RAM. It's running the latest iOS.

I think as long as RIM is around, the PlayBook still has a good foreseeable future and should be able to be supported for a total of about 3-4 years. Just my personal opinion.

[SparkyBC]

Only the 16gb was discontinued. Playbook will be around for years to come.

[lboogie_1971_]

The Playbook 4G is still being introduced around the world. Thor made a small dig at Apple for changing their connector, so I highly doubt that he would introduce a new product that would require those with older models to buy new accessories. Not to mention that as has been said in other threads that the Playbook is being upgraded to BB10, we just don't have an idea how long after the launch of the L or N series.

[jpash549]

The dock rapid charger ought to be redesigned anyhow to allow access to the other ports while charging. The rapid travel charger seems to sell at a premium to the dock charger but why would it cost more to make. Bargain hunters will turn loose of cash while few people are willing to pay full retail these days.

[Bobert_123]

Only the 16gb was discontinued. Playbook will be around for years to come.

I highly doubt the current one will be around for years but an updated one definitely.

[TheScionicMan]

I don't know much about supply chain management and marketing,

QFT

Stores buy products to sell them. They aren't on consignment for RIM where they make a portion from each sale the store makes. RIM made their portion regardless of what the store sells the product for. The store has already spent money on the product, but they don't make money on items that don't sell. And if those non-selling items are taking up space that sell-able products could be using, then they need to make room and they mark things down to move them.

IMO, it has little to nothing to do with RIM's future plans. That's probably not even taken into account.

The other problem is that many of the accessories were priced along with the PB's original price. It seems hard to justify a $70 charger for a $150 dollar tablet...

[DC506]

The other problem is that many of the accessories were priced along with the PB's original price. It seems hard to justify a $70 charger for a $150 dollar tablet...

IMO.....you hit the nail on the head with that statement.

[FF22]

I'd hope that they are reworking the springloaded pins on both models of Rapid Charger.

[rotorwrench]

Can't we have have a sticky for these posts? I think this is number 253.

[991514982a]

It seems here in Canada that most retailers are only selling/carrying the 32GB models. The 16gb and 64gb ones seem to be hard to comeby @ brick and mortars (and on their online stores [eg. Futureshop, Bestbuy, Staples])

[Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes]

I realize this has been discussed elsewhere and the general concensus, based on clues in BB10 promotional materials and talks, is that the Playbook is not being abandoned by Blackberry, and will be updated to BB10 sometime after BB10 phones launch. That would be great, of course.

But if that's true, then why the fire sale on all of the Playbook accessories? Why would the rapid charger be going for $11 today if there are going to be more playbooks sold in the future? Is it just a matter of these retailers managing their inventory? Wouldn't RIM take them back from the retailers in order to sell them for a good profit in the future? I don't know much about supply chain management and marketing, but this seems like strong evidence that the Playbook is going to die off, or that if some "Playbook" tablet will exist in the future then it won't use the same accessories.

And I do know about supply chain management. Its my job. The playbook is not done yet because of these sales

[Jonesy1966]

There were published reports a month or two ago that RIM was selling down existing WiFi inventory to make way for Gen2 in March or April. This makes a certain amount of sense as the PB is almost 2 years old now and probably needs a bit of a spruce up. Also rumoured to be launched at the same time is a 10" version.

I'll try and dig up at least one of the articles and post the link.

[Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes]

I'd hope that they are reworking the springloaded pins on both models of Rapid Charger.

I actually think frequent use fixed mine. I havent had the issue in maybe 2 or three months now.

[Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes]

It seems here in Canada that most retailers are only selling/carrying the 32GB models. The 16gb and 64gb ones seem to be hard to comeby @ brick and mortars (and on their online stores [eg. Futureshop, Bestbuy, Staples])

The 16gb arent available in canada anymore i dont think. The 64gb are still technically available but the deals are so good most people get it instead of the 32, leaving mostly 32s on the shelves. Thats my opinion

[ED the new guy]

The 16gb arent available in canada anymore i dont think. The 64gb are still technically available but the deals are so good most people get it instead of the 32, leaving mostly 32s on the shelves. Thats my opinion

The 32 GB ones go on super super discount. They seem to regularly go up for $129 but occasionally they're priced at $118 if you're fast (in Canada, that is). It's next to impossible to get Playbooks online anymore, even if you're prepared to pay full price. Futureshop, BestBuy and Staples.ca all are sold out. And this is during the busy Christmas shopping season so I'm a little pessimistic about the Playbook's future.

I was lucky and got mine online at $118 on sale a few weeks ago (on eBay they'll often go for pretty close to retail for USED items) but I've been looking since because we'd like to get a nephew one and they're all listed at $149 and you can't buy them on-line at all the major retailers even if you wanted to pay full price.

My gut says RIM is going to try their new generation for a bit and see if that catches on (since it sounds like they've invested recent R&D dollars into making a 10" version), and, otherwise they're going to cut their losses and get out of the tablet game altogether. They're competing to hang on to fourth place in the tablet OS wars with Microsoft and Microsoft has a huge war chest to go after Google and Apple while Google and Apple have huge market shares and millions of customers that are already locked into their respective application stores.

The Playbook is a wonderful machine with surprisingly decent software and stability, but, RIM has never believed in it enough to make it a viable contender for 3rd place (charging iPad prices for a device that didn't offer the iPad experience, coming out with crippled software at the start (no e-mail), providing no viable video chat (a video chat that only works on a small platform is a dead on arrival video chat)).

RIM crippled the machine by trying to play the Apple game of we only work with other Playbooks for video chat (not even other RIM products since BBM is denied to Playbooks), and, unlike Apple, the Playbook didn't completely dominate the market when they decided to do this.

Two simple things early on that could've made them many, many, many more sales and might've allowed them to catch the eye of a lot of consumers (rather than being perceived as the "cheap but nearly dead" tablet): (1) open up BlackBerry's video chat to other platforms by writing iOS, Android and Mac/PC clients; or, (2) licence/pay for Skype to come to the Playbook!

It's a shame really because I quite like the Playbook OS but, because I "feel" like it's a dead platform I'll buy the very bare minimum of apps for it (I've already got an iPhone so I have a number of apps that would become available for free to me on an iPad the moment I bought one). I'm really hoping RIM can revive the Playbook line and the OS in the spring but I'm not going to bet the farm on it.

I paid $118 plus tax for my wonderful machine. It serves my needs and it serves them well but I very consciously bought it because I didn't want the distraction of an iPad or an Android with their plethora of apps--I wanted a video player that was capable of light web browsing (I wish its video player were able to manage folders but that's a different story) since I want to take on-line courses. If RIM drops support I won't be too distraught since I already feel like I've gotten my money's worth out of it but will be disappointed that yet another piece of electronics will end up in the landfill before it has to.

[BoldWorld]

According to Office Depot customer service the 64GB Playbook has been discontinued
see chat attached

[donmateo]

Still all over Amazon. I seriously doubt they would be discontinued without some public notice, especially since BB10 is coming to PB.

[hutch0707]

Could this mean a new Wifi version of playbook will be announced on the 30th as well?

[axllebeer]

And new version would be nice, but I wouldn't put any money on it till BB10 is a success. After a successful launch then RIM can put resources into a new PlayBook.

[blueberrymerry]

I just got a Wi-fi Playbook and frankly, I love the little thing The specs must have been amazing when it was released one and a half years ago and even now, it runs as smoothly as the latest Android tablets. The multitasking and UI remind me of the best of Android, WebOS and Meego-Harmattan, with better performance than all of them.

If you're a Symbian user (any of those around?) then you'll be familiar with sticking to a device for years while waiting for the manufacturer to finally deliver proper software for it. I thought the Playbook was a joke when it was released without an email client and was nothing more than a big screen tethered to a Blackberry... now OS 2.1 has made it into a proper standalone machine.

I think BB10 will combine the best of multiple platforms and ecosystems - Qt and QML from Symbian and Meego, legacy Web frameworks from the current OS, and Dalvik support for Android apps. The current hardware is good enough to run any of these so RIM has no excuse not to bring BB10 to first-gen Playbooks. I hope they bring stuff like USB-on-the-go support, USB mass storage and Bluetooth file transfer to BB10. Apple's walled garden isn't something to be imitated

[kdeckels]

It would be amazing if the Playbook as we know it wasn't discontinued. Think about how often new models usually come out and how long this model has been sold. I highly doubt the current 4g model has been discontinued, and who knows, maybe there's a PB2 waiting in the wings somewhere.