[Al Watson]

Hi, thinking of buying a Play Book, was wondering what people thought of them. I've never used on just seen on youtube. Mainly gonna be used for surfing, watching movies and emails. Let me know whats good and bad. Cheers.

Al (England)...

[kbz1960]

Lots of info on here already.

I have one and it's OK for those things but do expect to be frustrated with it too.

[bambinoitaliano]

Hi, thinking of buying a Play Book, was wondering what people thought of them. I've never used on just seen on youtube. Mainly gonna be used for surfing, watching movies and emails. Let me know whats good and bad. Cheers.

Al (England)...

Playbook does all that. If movies is involve perhaps a 64G. Not sure which country you are in. It's pretty difficult to get one except online. Should be under $200 for a new one. Or try Craig list for a use one. Depends on your luck and timing, perhaps you can score one for slightly over a hundred bucks. Certainly more budget friendlier than IPad. Depends on your tablet experience too. If you venture into android tablets, there's a whole other debate.

[mh1983]

It'll work swimmingly for what you want to use it for. Even though BB hasn't stood by it, it's a great little tablet for media consumption, surfing, and email. A few dedicated app developers are keeping the device alive (for me, at least) -- apps like Origami Browser and Kalemsoft Media Player will come in handy for what you want to do.

Here are the pros and cons for me:

Pros -- excellent multi-tasker, good battery life, nice display, portable, HDMI-out, easy to network/file share, Origami browser, Kalemsoft, good email client

Cons -- app shortage (Netflix, Skype, etc), basically end-of-life/limited support from BB, stock browser/checkerboarding effect, older Android runtime

In spite of its limitations and BB's lack of love for the device, it's a great piece of kit that should work well for your purposes.

[Carl Estes]

Yes, if you can find a 64 like mentioned above, you will be happy for you planned use. Do you have a BB phone? Then it will be even sweeter, as long as you have a phone that is running 7.xxxxx(non BB10, new phone), as the Bridge function is INTACT, you can answer emails/SMS and such while your phone is charging elsewhere in the house, and you my friend are sitting in front of your big screen piping vids thru the HDMI interface. Also, get a BB Music Gateway, plug that sucker into your audio system, and it now acts like a media server to the stereo, all sound, video on tv, and your using your BB 7.xxxx phone as a remote control!!!!!

If you have a BB10 phone, eh, roll the dice. Bridge is broken in that OS/new phone line up. Hopefully, they will fix that. There a lot of people WAITING to see if that is fixed/restored before they upgrade to the new BB10 phones.
I suspect a small fix for the 10 OS, just depends if BB/RIM has the, uh, "berries" to "finish" what they started.....

That's what I am waiting for, or once either my 9850 or Playbooks die, then somebody else might be seeing the money in my wallet.........

But you can't beat it for cost (now) for what you want to do with it.

Go for it!!!!

C

[Al Watson]

cheers, im in england and you can pick up a 64gb on ebay (got a lot of PB extras on it) for about 80 ($122) funny you should say about BB abandoning this as they still have on there official web site over here. not looking for loads of apps, possible just what i have on my phone and BBM, which i know you have to link though your phone.

Al (England)...

[Al Watson]

got a 9790 on 7.1 so should be ok to bridge.

Al (England)...

[mh1983]

cheers, im in england and you can pick up a 64gb on ebay (got a lot of PB extras on it) for about 80 ($122) funny you should say about BB abandoning this as they still have on there official web site over here. not looking for loads of apps, possible just what i have on my phone and BBM, which i know you have to link though your phone.

Al (England)...

Great deal!

Yeah, the product's listing on the BB site continues to perplex.

I wasn't looking for apps either when I bought it. The reason I flagged the two above (Origami and Kalemsoft) is that they are MAJOR enhancements to existing functions on the PlayBook (browsing and media consumption).

You'll see many threads about "BB10 not coming to PlayBook." While it was a low-blow on their part, I find the 2.1.xx OS is in nice shape and is very intuitive.

Good luck!

[FF22]

As long as you are aware that BB/RIM has pretty much abandoned the tablet. There are still apps and it can serve those purposes you mentioned fairly well.

[bambinoitaliano]

got a 9790 on 7.1 so should be ok to bridge.

Al (England)...

In that case you are good to go!!

[Angus_CB]

At that price the Playbook is still a good deal for the purposes you describe.

The default Playbooks apps are very basic. A lot of video codecs are not supported.
There are some very good apps though.
KalemSoft Media Player is a very good video player. I haven't anything yet that it won't play.
Origami Browser is a very good web browser.
The authors of these two apps have been much more supportive of the Playbook than Blackberry has.