Playbook Has Really Impressed Me

As I stated in a couple of my other posts I am neither an Apple fanboy or Rim fanboy. However, I am on a business trip to Hawaii and just wanted share my experience with my playbook.

Woke up at 4 AM and took the PB off the charger and put it in my backpack. The battery was at 100 %.

I used the playbooks to watch 2 movies (about 4 hours) on the first flight (NJ to Salt Lake City). I had a 2 hour layover and watched about 1 hour of SNL season 1. On the second flight (SLC - Honolulu) I listened to music for about three hours and reviewed some PDF's I would need for the new customer system I have to install in Hawaii for about 2 hours.

I am now in Hawaii and just checked the PB and the battery is at 55%. More than enough to get me through listening to some music while at the pool today (No worries I have the otterbox case).

I must admit I was very skeptical of the PB at first and the only reason I bought it was because of the $299 price for 64G. If you read this post carefully you will notice I did not mention my iPad once.

Oh... wait a minute... I did use it once for 30 seconds..... There is a nice travel app I use that contains all my travel information... I needed the hotel address for the car rental GPS.... Hopefully with 2.0 there will be a similar app for the PB.

I do not want to start an iPad vs PB thread, there is enough of that on this site. However, I will admit this will probably be my last trip with my iPad. I will still continue to use it as a netbook for certain things where I do not want my laptop and the PB screen is too small such as when I VPN to a site and use RDP. The extra size the iPad gives me helps my old eyes.:)

congratulation. welcome to the club.

well writen.. no hack towards any brand. good one

Very nice thread. Glad you have found the playbook and enjoy it as much as I do.

Welcome to the forums!

Check out the Newbie Tips and Tricks for the Playbook, by clicking below my signature..
It was compiled by the knowledgeable posters from this forum.

Also check out the vids in the Blackberry Playbook 101.

Enjoy!

Welcome to the forums!
There is an app (not currently available for PB yet, to the best of my knowledge, but hopefully will be soon) called bb travel. I use it for air, car rental and hotel info.

Your sig does not indicate which handheld, if any, you use, but if it can be of any help to you, I'll post a link.

RROYY - APPLICATIONS

ftatul, I have to agree, the battery has been impressive on the PB. Your post on that was very informative, I wasn't expecting quite that much time. As a traveler myself, it gives me a benchmark to see how well I do on my next long trip.

The original spec was published at approx. 6 hrs, I think? I read however, that the spec was written up during early testing phase of the product, and I imagine some of the OS updates have helped improve that too.

Welcome...........:)

I think your experience of the Playbook matches most of those I've heard.

Once you've used the PB for a while, you really start to appreciate its finer qualities. Superb display, good battery life, and "just-right" form-factor. :)

Several of my iPad (there, I said it! :)) owning buddies like to use my PB. They all love the size primarily... many of their iPads never leave the house because (in their words) "...they're too big".

The major fly in the ointment is that the system software isn't up to the same standard as the hardware, but that should be resolved very soon when OS2 arrives in February.

And as the man above says, welcome! :)

Originally Posted by ftatul

As I stated in a couple of my other posts I am neither an Apple fanboy or Rim fanboy. However, I am on a business trip to Hawaii and just wanted share my experience with my playbook.

Woke up at 4 AM and took the PB off the charger and put it in my backpack. The battery was at 100 %.

I used the playbooks to watch 2 movies (about 4 hours) on the first flight (NJ to Salt Lake City). I had a 2 hour layover and watched about 1 hour of SNL season 1. On the second flight (SLC - Honolulu) I listened to music for about three hours and reviewed some PDF's I would need for the new customer system I have to install in Hawaii for about 2 hours.

I am now in Hawaii and just checked the PB and the battery is at 55%. More than enough to get me through listening to some music while at the pool today (No worries I have the otterbox case).

I must admit I was very skeptical of the PB at first and the only reason I bought it was because of the $299 price for 64G. If you read this post carefully you will notice I did not mention my iPad once.

Oh... wait a minute... I did use it once for 30 seconds..... There is a nice travel app I use that contains all my travel information... I needed the hotel address for the car rental GPS.... Hopefully with 2.0 there will be a similar app for the PB.

I do not want to start an iPad vs PB thread, there is enough of that on this site. However, I will admit this will probably be my last trip with my iPad. I will still continue to use it as a netbook for certain things where I do not want my laptop and the PB screen is too small such as when I VPN to a site and use RDP. The extra size the iPad gives me helps my old eyes.:)

****UPDATE*******


it is now 2.23 (HT) 7.23 (EST) and the PB has been running for 39 hrs. I used it lightly today for a few posts on Crackberry, answer some emails, scan a PDF to answer a question for tbe customer who called me, and was connected to the hotel wifi all day. The PB battery is at 25%. I just wanted to give anupdate to those who are planning long trips and using the PB an update. I will have to charge the PB tonight but my impression remains.......WOW.....By time i go to bed tonight it will be around 4AM EST and if you look at all I used the PB for i got about 48 hrs on a single charge.

Aloha...

BTW...sent from my PB at the pool and have consumed 4 Mitys and a 5th on the way. LOL hope
i spelled the drink correctly

Well, either something is wrong with my battery or web browsing takes up a lot of battery life. Lasts about 5 hours while browsing. I need to test the life while watching a movie or something.

Originally Posted by ftatul

...sent from my PB at the pool and have consumed 4 Mitys and a 5th on the way. LOL hope
i spelled the drink correctly

lol... not quite: it's "Mai-tai"...

Glad you're enjoying your PB. The size/weight thing is a definite advantage. I'm developing a wearable holster; my current prototype is great, but an iPad would be just big enough that it wouldn't work right...

Originally Posted by ftatul

****UPDATE*******


it is now 2.23 (HT) 7.23 (EST) and the PB has been running for 39 hrs. I used it lightly today for a few posts on Crackberry, answer some emails, scan a PDF to answer a question for tbe customer who called me, and was connected to the hotel wifi all day. The PB battery is at 25%. I just wanted to give anupdate to those who are planning long trips and using the PB an update. I will have to charge the PB tonight but my impression remains.......WOW.....By time i go to bed tonight it will be around 4AM EST and if you look at all I used the PB for i got about 48 hrs on a single charge.

Aloha...

BTW...sent from my PB at the pool and have consumed 4 Mitys and a 5th on the way. LOL hope
i spelled the drink correctly

NO You Did Not!!! It's spelled Mai Tai.
Now go back out to the pool, and start all over again. :p

I can't say I've seen anything like that for battery life. If RIM finds out they may hunt you down to get that one back.
Cheers!

You got 5 hours of movies plus 3 hours of music and some light usage and still had 55% battery life left. I use my Playbook everyday and it does have very good battery life but I have never gotten anything close to that. You must a special prototype with an experimental battery that no one has ever heard about. Don't lose that PlayBook.

Yeah, that sounds like a battery on steroids to me, lol. Did you do "standby" after each session? Not sure if you mentioned that or not.

I'm pretty impressed w/the battery on the PB w/consistent use. There's also a thread about batteries draining rapidly in "standby" mode which I've witnessed a few times.

Did you shut down all your apps after each use...?

Originally Posted by imacj

NO You Did Not!!! It's spelled Mai Tai.
Now go back out to the pool, and start all over again. :p

Bad boy! Take your punishment!
Now skedattle!!

LOL

maybe the op has his pb on default mode, not showcase? that might explain longer battery life?

Good point! It may be that the OP has been operating his PB in "iPad" mode (i.e. the default crippled multitasking) rather than the full-on, native QNX multitasking goodness. :-)

RCK

i for one just started to use pb and very happy by the size and speed hope feb they would launch fix for us to use android then this would be a greater

How do you get to the "default" mode? I've no need for multitasking.
Thanks.

Originally Posted by Michel Souris

How do you get to the "default" mode? I've no need for multitasking.
Thanks.

• Click on the 'gear' icon in the upper right corner to access your settings.
• Select "General" on the left pane.
• Change "Application behaviour" to "default" or "paused"