[tdexter77]

Received my PlayBook back in April of 2010 when it first came out. At first....I was a little disappointed but it is now used daily and I can say it has been a great companion for both work and pleasure. I use all day at work and they again at home instead of breaking out the laptop. I have tried the iPad, Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the iPad mini and non have met my expectations. I guess it is all about personal preference. Since my company uses BlackBerry as their device of choice.....I feel it is a no brainer to use a PlayBook as the perfect companion. I am currently using the 9900 waiting patiently (wait....that's a lie....waiting VERY IMPATIENTLY) for my company to support the Z10 so I can upgrade! OK....didn't mean to get off topic but needless to say LOVE my PlayBook!

[SebastianNap]

Incomplete OS. Software was rushed.

Posted with my AT&T BlackBerry Z10

[Bakamushi]

I love my playbook ! for those who say the browser is slow .....wtf it gets higher scores in html5test.com than any other browser and that's without bb10.

this is a fantastic device that is better than the brand new ipad mini

I'm beginning to wonder if you're serious or you have a bold sense of humor.

Or... if you ever used a playbook, an ipad or an Android tab.

[Bakamushi]

Nothing about this experiment surprised me. This has been my experience of my PB from day one. I now just laugh when people on CB claim the PB's QNX is such a finely tuned operating system that it doesn't need the mega specs of android devices. The truth is just the opposite, when my android phone with half the ram can run circles, or at least load photos, around the Playbook.

QNX is only a potential superiority, but that superiority in the kernel comes from before BB bought it. And what BB made of it is disappointing to say the least.

[Captain_Hilts]

Definitely not disappointed with my 32GB wi-fi PlayBook. In the end, though, it all comes down to what you need and what you want. So all this talk of speed and the number of apps and the ability to access your bank info essentially means nothing to everyone. They only mean something to a few people. If ALL you want is to access your bank account, then spend hundreds of dollars to get an Android or an iDevice. If ALL you want is to use it as a giant remote control for various devices in your setup because apparently your devices have no way to talk to each otherwise, then spend hundreds of dollars to get an Android or an iDevice. And if ALL you care about is games, then Android and the iStore have no shortage of games (most of which are either of poor quality or are just an extremely temporary diversion) for you to download and buy.

I got my PlayBook earlier this year, about 8 months after buying a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0. I still have that device, but I hardly ever touch it except for chatting with friends over LINE. I realized after using it for months and months that it just couldn't meet my needs. The PlayBook is a workhorse, but the Galaxy is little more than a toy, as far as I'm concerned. I'm in a mass comm doctoral program and do a lot of writing on the go (hey, the thing's lighter than a laptop and much more practical for traveling). The Galaxy Tab's keyboard positively sucks for any functional communication or writing (slow to recognize quick typing, routinely mistakes letters) and it simply cannot multitask to any good effect. If I have a document open plus a video file open in the native video player, going from one to the other causes the document to reload (bye bye all unsaved changes) and the video to revert back to the beginning. With the PlayBook, I can go back and forth with just a swipe. The HDMI port also makes it ideal for connecting to TVs and projectors when I present at conferences. But in the end, this is just me. If I want to play a game, I'll play a hardcore, real game on console, something in which I'm emotionally invested. If I want to control all my devices, I have an integrated setup, so a tablet is unnecessary.

So, no, definitely not disappointed. I'll be sticking with my PlayBook.

[Barracuda7772]

I'm beginning to wonder if you're serious or you have a bold sense of humor.

Or... if you ever used a playbook, an ipad or an Android tab.

I am serious from what I said playbook handles html5 better than its competitors

[untakenusername]

Here's a little experiment I did to demonstrate why I am disappointed with my PB.

Last night I was viewing photos in Dropbox on my PB and noticed they were very slow to load. Typically, a couple would load, then a lag (several seconds at a minimum) then maybe a couple more would load, then more lag, then a message saying Dropbox was not responding.

I fetched my Samsung S2 phone (same ram, 50% faster clock speed) and found I could load the same photos with virtually no lag, no app crashing, etc.

So this morning I decided to repeat the 'test', but a little more rigorously, and with the addition of my HTC One V phone (half a gig of ram, same clock speed as the PB). I lined them up, abaout 30 feet from the router, rebooted the HTC and Playbook (not the Samsung), cleared the cache on all, turned off flash and java on the Playbook (just in case), and launched Dropbox. It opened smoothly on both phones but crashed twice on the PB before it launched. Curiously, both times it crashed it launched with a configuration of folders that I had changed the night before, even though I had cleared the PB's cache. Whatever. All three are now open. I start loading pics. On the SG, initially they took about three seconds each to load, and about twice that on both the HTC and PB. Clearly, they were still loading in the background, so I waited a few minutes to let that happen, went back to the start of the photo queue, and tried flipping from photo to photo. On both the phones, it went quickly and seamlessly. On the Playbook, it loaded several photos, then balked. After about 20 seconds it loaded another, then the message about Dropbox not responding. I pushed the 'wait' button, it came back, but would only load photos very balkily, meaning, a few seconds, or more, between each. ... I just went back to the devices, after writing the above, to finish the experiment. The phones ran smoothly through the remaining eight photos in the folder, the HTC a split-second slower (no surprise with half the ram and slower clock speed). The Playbook again had the 'Dropbox not responding' message when I went back. Got past that, flicked the photos. Three loaded, then it balked. After about 10 seconds another loaded, then it balked again. Gave up.

Nothing about this experiment surprised me. This has been my experience of my PB from day one. I now just laugh when people on CB claim the PB's QNX is such a finely tuned operating system that it doesn't need the mega specs of android devices. The truth is just the opposite, when my android phone with half the ram can run circles, or at least load photos, around the Playbook.

Granted, this was a test of an android app, Dropbox. But that doesn't really matter since BB is missing so many common apps (like Dropbox) that PB owners who don't want to settle for a crippled (is that word PC?) tablet experience have to go the android emulator/sideload route.

By the way, for what it's worth, my router tells me the Mbps rate for each device is currently as follows:

Playbook 19
Samsung 11 (the slowest)
HTC 39

Those long winter evenings must fly by......

[ralphrwatson]

Yes, I'm afraid I'm very disheartened. I was given the Playbook as a Christmas gift and chose it over other options as I'm a Blackberry lover. I was told (by the guy in the store) "yes, it runs Android apps, no problem sir." It now seems he was bending the facts somewhat extensively. I can't run a lot of the apps I'd like to have - ITV iPlayer and Skype for starters - and the wi-fi pickup seems very weak as it frequently can't find signals that my laptop picks up full strength.

I now find that I'm seriously considering going Samsung and dumping both my Playbook AND my Blackberry, having been a Blackberry user for some years. sad days :-(

[Icarus3000]

No. Not at all.

Posted via CB10

[kbz1960]

Yes, I'm afraid I'm very disheartened. I was given the Playbook as a Christmas gift and chose it over other options as I'm a Blackberry lover. I was told (by the guy in the store) "yes, it runs Android apps, no problem sir." It now seems he was bending the facts somewhat extensively. I can't run a lot of the apps I'd like to have - ITV iPlayer and Skype for starters - and the wi-fi pickup seems very weak as it frequently can't find signals that my laptop picks up full strength.

I now find that I'm seriously considering going Samsung and dumping both my Playbook AND my Blackberry, having been a Blackberry user for some years. sad days :-(

It does run android apps just not all of them and not all of the ones it does work well. I find wifi on mine works as well as my other stuff.

Sometimes a person has to do what they have to do.

[Wongsky]

Yes, I'm afraid I'm very disheartened. I was given the Playbook as a Christmas gift and chose it over other options as I'm a Blackberry lover. I was told (by the guy in the store) "yes, it runs Android apps, no problem sir." It now seems he was bending the facts somewhat extensively. I can't run a lot of the apps I'd like to have - ITV iPlayer and Skype for starters - and the wi-fi pickup seems very weak as it frequently can't find signals that my laptop picks up full strength.

I now find that I'm seriously considering going Samsung and dumping both my Playbook AND my Blackberry, having been a Blackberry user for some years. sad days :-(

ITV player probably works through the browser, doesn't it? On Android seems to require AIR and possibly flash, so I suspect it will probably work on the PlayBook - and given I have it in my list of bookmarks on my PlayBook browser, it looks as if I've used it OK on the PlayBook.

[sad_old_man]

All this talk is scaring me

[Wongsky]

All this talk is scaring me

But then you spent so many nights thinking how I did you wrong and you grew strong and you learned how to get along?

Oh no not you, you will survive!

Truth be told, I get scared of ITV player, sometimes - some of it is absolute rubbish - Britain hasn't got talent - tell me something I don't know. But as long as I've got iPlayer I know I'll survive...

[sad_old_man]

But then you spent so many nights thinking how I did you wrong and you grew strong and you learned how to get along?

Oh no not you, you will survive!

Truth be told, I get scared of ITV player, sometimes - some of it is absolute rubbish - Britain hasn't got talent - tell me something I don't know. But as long as I've got iPlayer I know I'll survive...

Canada geese can only fly directly magnetic north, or directly magnetic south! Didn't know that did you? and one of our sister aircraft reported spotting one at an altitude of 68,000ft!

Now in keeping with forum rules, regulations, protocols, morals I must state that this fact does not in any way affect my feelings for my playbook. At all whatsoever, nothing!

[blueberrymerry]

How the heck does a goose fly at 68,000 feet? Must get seriously giddy up there with so little oxygen, kinda like being a Playbook user

[deercreekmichael]

Nope. I'm very happy with mine. I just typed this on my PlayBook.

[sad_old_man]

How the heck does a goose fly at 68,000 feet? Must get seriously giddy up there with so little oxygen, kinda like being a Playbook user

What we were told is when they are off flying somewhere where gooses fly to, they flap their wings all day climbing to heights that no sane animal should reach and then open their wing and sleep while they glide slowly back down? Don't shoot the messenger, that's what we got told.

[Angus_CB]

Air Canada follows the same method.
Fuel savings ya know.

[sad_old_man]

It does run android apps just not all of them and not all of the ones it does work well. I find wifi on mine works as well as my other stuff.

Sometimes a person has to do what they have to do.

Someone doesn't agree with you!

[jpash549]

Canada geese can only fly directly magnetic north, or directly magnetic south! Didn't know that did you? and one of our sister aircraft reported spotting one at an altitude of 68,000ft!

Now in keeping with forum rules, regulations, protocols, morals I must state that this fact does not in any way affect my feelings for my playbook. At all whatsoever, nothing!

Was the report from your sister aircraft on the gee(oo)se as credible as your reports? No comment on what was in the pilots tea before he took off? Perhaps his oxygen mask was malfunctioning.

[kbz1960]

Someone doesn't agree with you!

[deejayburnout]

Not at all.

Goes everywhere with me. I am reading more books with it, trying to learn how to write apps for it. I love how I can easily use my 9900 on it to share data and use it as a keyboard.

Bloody brilliant I say.

[chaosdivine]

<-- See that avatar? I made it. I love the PlayBook. YES, it has some shortcomings and annoyances - but they really COULD be fixed if BlackBerry got their shi* together and released some regular updates based on feedback. That is what I thought the beta programs were for but what do I know...

Anyhow, speed up the browser, improve the email client and allow for the migration to BB 10 and I'd be perfectly happy. Hopefully that would include an Android Player bump too. Since I'm being picky, update Adobe Acrobat or allow us to uninstall it since it's a steaming pile of useless.

The one thing that really gets me is that websites out there can target the PlayBook and seemingly block it from working. I mean, LiveFyre comments for one thing do not work in the PlayBook since early March 2013. I emailed them and got a reply, we don't support PlayBook...uh, do you use web standards? Yes, well then dumbass, you should be supporting the PlayBook...they said they don't block things according to browser strings but I can not come up with another excuse that works. Maxthon browser works...it's an Android port though and in that browser, Flash doesn't work - vicious circle.

Taking my movie rips to friends and family houses when I go is awesome since I'm packing HDMI and a remote controller from my 9810. They're like, that little thing can put out THAT quality of video and you can control it from your phone? Apple and Android can't do that! Ya, I know...it kicks @ss doesn't it? It only cost me $149 too! Where do I get one? Uh, well you can't since they're sold out and seemingly not coming again in the immediate future, try ebay, kijiji, craigslist. It's worth it!

[perking]

Dear guys, I totally agree that PB's price is reasonable, but it doesn't mean that Blackberry can take the fundamental functions out of this device.

Some people focuses too much on the price and forgets why we want a tablet. It's experience. A big-screen device provide a better experience in surfing web, mapping, photo, and multi media. Sadly, except a good browser, PB haven't got suffyciency in any factor of the rest.

Map? I nearly forget that PB has GPS function, it rarely work, even after trying to fix GPS for a while.

Photo? the screen may be excellent (in comparison with other devices that have the same resolution) but PB doesn't have enough data resouces to display. No Flickr, Picasa or Photobucket, and people who want to view photo from social networks will be disappointed becauce there is no native official Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook for PB must be the worst social app I've seen. Yes, I know that we can convert some Android Apps, but we have to admit that most of them work unsmoothly.

Multimedia? it seem to be better with Youtube supporting, but that app need to be update more frequently. I don't know why when I try the same searching with Youtube in iPad and PB, the result in iPad is always more adequate.

I know you all (or most of you) love BBY and so do I, but we need more changes on PB eco system because PB deserve that.

[SifJar]

I love my playbook ! for those who say the browser is slow .....wtf it gets higher scores in html5test.com than any other browser and that's without bb10.

this is a fantastic device that is better than the brand new ipad mini

The score on HTML5test.com has nothing to do with speed. It just indicates how many HTML5 features are supported by the browser.

The PB's superiority to the iPad Mini is highly subjective. Personally I would indeed see it as superior, mainly because I am free to sideload any apps I want that aren't allowed in App World for one reason or another, and I can convert Android apps and use them. But the iPad Mini does have some advantages e.g. much better app support. It really depends on what is important to you.