Why I love my Blackberry Playbook
First of all, a hello to everyone here as this is my first post. I am compelled to mention my own experience with Blackberry since there appears to be so much nonsense journalism pouring out bashing RIM and the Playbook.
In July I preordered a Nexus 7, having previously owned an iPad 3 (well, 'New iPad' or whatever it's called). I'd had the iPad for a few months, and it boasted rock-solid reliability and generally excellent build quality (though not perfect - the buttons felt cheap and a bit wobbly)... but I just found the whole iPad experience a bit boring. It was heavy to hold, too, so not very comfortable for prolonged use. Prior to that I'd owned an ASUS Prime - that lasted about 2 weeks. It crashed, a lot.
The Nexus 7 arrived, and for about 5 minutes I loved it. 5 minutes - then it crashed. Then it crashed again, and again. After 24 hours, it was basically unuseable (GPU broke, I think). I went back to Google immediately and requested a refund, since I'd heard thousands of others experiencing similar problems on the XDA forum. With Google, I received the WORST customer service experience of my life. It took them 6 weeks to refund me, and I called them about 15 times. Ridiculous.
On finally receiving my refund from Google, I discovered an article stating that the 64GB Playbook had been reduced to �129 - much less than I paid for the 8GB Nexus 7. My local Currys were selling it, so I knew that if it broke it would be far easier to get my money back. So I took a punt. It was the first Blackberry product I'd bought.
The first thing that struck me was the build quality - it felt far more solidly built than the Nexus 7, and comparable to the iPad in terms of robustness. I was initially concerned with the lower resolution of the Playbook screen, but as soon as I started using it that seemed irrelevant as the image quality was great.
The OS impressed me as well - multitasking was excellent and the gestures just felt natural.
Four months in and i absolutely LOVE the thing! My wife comments on the fact that I carry it around with me all the time in the house - sad but true! I bought my wife one as well because she just wouldn't stop using mine. I bought my parents one, and they use it to video call me and listen to music by plugging it into their hifi. I recommended it to a friend, who also really likes it!
The video playback is brilliant. I can upload videos through wifi over my windows network straight to the Playbook - movies I've ripped from my DVDs. They play perfectly. Codec support seems very good - it handles most formats I throw at it. I also love the ability to quickly zoom in and out of a rolling video - only occasionally useful, but very cool!
Its handling of messages is second-to-none. I've loaded my email, facebook, twitter, linkedin onto the Playbook and everything comes through on one source - really convenient.
Skype support would be great, but I use the video call function a lot. My parents are both elderly and quite ill - they use it to video call me quite regularly and it's great to see them that way. It works flawlessly. My wife and young son are currently in China for a few weeks and my wife uses it as well - my 11 month old son loves seeing my face on it. He grabs the Playbook and starts laughing.
But probably the main reason for loving the Playbook is its sound quality. When I first heard it playing music my jaw almost hit the floor - the speakers from the Playbook aren't just best-in-class, they absolutely blow away every other tablet and laptop I've ever used (and I've used a lot). I am a massive music fan and audiophile with a pretty vast collection, but have found music basically unlistenable on the inbuilt speakers on any mobile device. Not so with the Playbook - playback is loud, and more importantly CLEAR. I take it in the bathroom with me in the morning and listen to it when I have a shower and get ready for work - it rests against the bathroom window. Even with the shower and fan on, you can not only hear the music, but really enjoy it. The experience is similarly excellent when plugging it into a hifi - the DAC is very good quality for a tablet, and the output is, once again, better than on any other mobile device I've heard. With Neutron MP, shuffled music plays to normalised volume and even crossfades! For my dad's 70th birthday party we rented a large hall - the Playbook was plugged into the hifi there and provided the music throughout. Also, it flawlessly supports WMA lossless and FLAC.
Out of interest, why do manufacturers so commonly ignore sound quality? It's as important to me as screen quality.
I purchased the Playbook charging dock, and the Playbook now also acts as my bedside alarm clock! I downloaded the Antair Nightstand app - the perfect combination.
There are quirks and annoyances. My power button is quite sticky - when I press it, it only clicks out about a second later. It's always been like that. Also, the browser gets very bogged down at times on heavy java/flash sites. I hope Blackberry 10 will help rectify this.
I'm a massive hardware geek and will probably purchase other devices in the future, but I doubt I'll ever get rid of my Playbook. For one, it can do things no other devices do - the sound output for example.
The Playbook is an ABSOLUTE STEAL at �129. I consider it the best purchase I've ever made.
That is all!
Re: Why I love my Blackberry Playbook
Great read.
I use my playbook mostly for schooling and don't know how I got through life without it.
I especially like the email.
Since I am doing long distance schooling through email I have to use it a lot.
I also love the multitasking and speakers.
It's overall the best deal out there.