CES 2011: Tablets at CES 2011 BlackBerry PlayBook
The BlackBerry PlayBook, first announced back in September 2010, has finally been unveiled at CES 2011 and we got our hands on it.
It’s less than 10mm thick and weighs about 400g. The tablet features a 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of Ram and runs the BlackBerry Tablet OS, rather than BBOS 6 which is the operating system used on BlackBerry's latest smartphone handsets.
See it in action in our video of the BlackBerry PlayBook, shot at the Consumer Electronics Show 2011.
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BlackBerry PlayBook screen and interface
The PlayBook has a 7-inch capacitive touch screen with 1024x600 resolution - lower than that of the iPad, but because of the smaller screen size, the pixel density, and hence clarity, are increased. It's multi-touch, so you can pinch-to-zoom and it's also easy to multi task by swiping your finger up or down the screen in an application.
Although the 7-inch screen is surrounded by quite a wide black bezel, this is actually one of the unique strengths of the PlayBook.
The PlayBook's black screen surround is itself touch sensitive, and is used to its advantage for navigation. Swiping a finger across the bezel and onto the screen from the edge brings up additional menu options. In the PlayBook's web browser, swiping from the top of the screen displays a menu to control tabbed browsing features. We found this approach remarkably intuitive, and a feature that may propel the PlayBook to the top of many people's tablet wish lists, as its usability could rival that of even Apple's iPad.
In our brief hands-on time with PlayBook we were mightily impressed with its slick operation - virtually no lag, and multitasking was a breeze, even on processor-intensive tasks such as HD video playback
As with all tablets, battery life on the PlayBook will be critical to its success - we haven't had a chance to assess this at CES 2011, but once we get a PlayBook from BlackBerry to our test labs we'll put it through our exhaustive battery life tests.
Photos and videos on the PlayBook
Both Flash 10.1 and HTML 5 are supported, so based on our hands-on time with the PlayBook, seeing how responsive it is, and with the hardware on board, the web experience should be as good as on any rival tablet when it comes to videos and interactive Flash content.
The PlayBook has two cameras: a front-facing 3Mp camera for video calls, and a rear facing 5Mp for general shooting. It can handle HD video and has an HDMI connection and micro USB port. The HDMI socket means that the BlackBerry PlayBook can be used as a media centre to output videos directly to a compatible HD TV.
If you have a BlackBerry smartphone you can wirelessly connect it to the PlayBook to access information like email, your calendar and the address book. You can also use your BlackBerry phone as a modem for 3G network access on the tablet.
The PlayBook will be available with 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of storage, but UK pricing is yet to be confirmed. We expect the PlayBook to go on sale in the UK in the first half of 2011.
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