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Gadgets RIM Announces 7" Dual-core PlayBook Tablet
Brandon Hill (Blog) - September 27, 2010 4:43 PM
Print 60 comment(s) - last by macthemechanic.. on Oct 2 at 10:39 PM
RIM will join Apple, Samsung with a fresh tablet

RIM's answer to the Apple iPad has been rumored for at least a few months, but the company made its new device official today. The 7" tablet is called the PlayBook and runs the BlackBerry Tablet OS which is based on QNX Neutrino microkernel architecture. RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis describes the device as "the first professional tablet".

The PlayBook features a 7” touch screen (1024x600), dual-core Cortex A9 processor, 1GB of RAM, and will have both HDMI and USB ports. Unlike the Apple iPad, the 9.7mm-thick PlayBook will have both a front-facing and rear camera. The device can also playback both HTML5 and Adobe Flash content.

Naturally, the PlayBook supports 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR. Although it won't be available at launch, RIM intends to release versions of the PlayBook with 3G and 4G functionality. 

“RIM set out to engineer the best professional-grade tablet in the industry with cutting-edge hardware features and one of the world's most robust and flexible operating systems,” said Lazaridis. “The BlackBerry PlayBook solidly hits the mark with industry leading power, true multitasking, uncompromised web browsing and high performance multimedia.”

Full specs for the PlayBook are as follows:

  • 7” LCD, 1024 x 600, WSVGA, capacitive touch screen with full multi-touch and gesture support
  • BlackBerry Tablet OS with support for symmetric multiprocessing
  • 1 GHz dual-core processor 
  • 1 GB RAM 
  • Dual HD cameras (3 MP front facing, 5 MP rear facing), supports 1080p HD video recording 
  • Video playback: 1080p HD Video, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV
  • Audio playback: MP3, AAC, WMA 
  • HDMI video output
  • Wi-Fi - 802.11 a/b/g/n 
  • Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
  • Connectors: microHDMI, microUSB, charging contacts
  • Open, flexible application platform with support for WebKit/HTML-5, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile AIR, Adobe Reader, POSIX, OpenGL, Java
  • Ultra thin and portable: 
    • Measures 5.1”x7.6”x0.4” (130mm x 193mm x 10mm)
    • Weighs less than a pound (approximately 0.9 lb or 400g)

More details are still slowly trickling in about the device, so you can watch a two-minute video here which previews the device's operating system. 

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RE: Professional?
By Enoch2001 on 9/27/2010 11:47:57 PM , Rating: -1
quote:
Traditionally, Apple users are...not professionals, they are hippies and hipsters. That may have changed, but no 'real' business uses Apples.


LOL - you sir.. are completely insane. I mean, seriously. Not insane as in "crazy cool", I mean insane like "you're off you're rocker and completely out of touch with reality".

I suppose the countless numbers of "not professionals" that produce the great majority of the music and film you consume aren't using Apples?

I see... they all produce their content on Blackberries because they're ohhhhhhh sooooo professional...

Oh right...

*rolls eyes and goes back to producing with my hipster hippy co-workers*


RE: Professional?
By chick0n on 9/28/10, Rating: 0
RE: Professional?
By Enoch2001 on 9/28/2010 11:54:30 AM , Rating: 1
Right. That's exactly why the dozen or so workstations in the production studio I work in are all Macs. And that's precisely why the television and film that has passed through our "unprofessional studio" are watched by audiences all across America every day of the week.

You're not only delusional, but clearly out of touch with reality.

Fanboys are irritating, but ill-informed fanboys who clench to untruths are downright depressing.

Move along...


RE: Professional?
By Kutcher on 9/28/2010 12:38:21 PM , Rating: 5
Why is it that any time any one mentions the business/professionnal world and Apple every fanboy jumps up and screams about the entertainement industry. Yes we are all aware that probably the vast majority of the entertainement industry uses Apple but in terms of the key professional industries of society, entertainement is pretty far down the list.

Engineers, Doctors, Lawyers, Labs, Military, Government, etc. almost exlusively use PC. Yes, there are a few places were Apple devices are integrated but they're for specific tasks. So please will you fanboys understand that the entertainement industry is a small portion of the professional/business world that gets way more credit and attention than it should.

Macs are fun and easy to use, which is why I bought one for my wife, but I don't think I'll be doing any civil infrastructure design on a Mac any time soon.


RE: Professional?
By mkrech on 9/29/2010 1:18:13 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
but I don't think I'll be doing any civil infrastructure design on a Mac any time soon.

You may want to reconsider that expectation:
http://www.macworld.com/article/153761/2010/08/aut...

Expect the Mac client to be faster and less encumbered by the years of poor UX design that is typical in the current windows client.


RE: Professional?
By Enoch2001 on 9/28/10, Rating: 0
RE: Professional?
By cochy on 9/28/2010 8:45:44 PM , Rating: 2
Have you never been here before? This is DailyTech. If you say anything positive about Apple be ready to be down rated.

Personally, I used my iPad all day today while I was in meetings out of the office. Besides accessing my corporate email using Exchange ActiveSync push technology, I was quite able to create a Word document, email it and sync it to all my other devices using Dropbox and remotely access my office PC using LogMein.

I'm an IT professional. Thank goodness RIM is here to save me >.>


RE: Professional?
By mkrech on 9/29/2010 1:25:56 PM , Rating: 2
...and it appears that you are a successful IT professional as well.

Using tools available to maximize your productivity should not be limited by allowing popular generalizations to resrict your decisions.

Thanks for posting, it encourages me to know that intelligent unbiased IT professionals do exist.


RE: Professional?
By vol7ron on 9/28/2010 8:26:59 PM , Rating: 1
I think your statement had merit 5 years ago.

Artists/filmographers traditionally used Apple because it came with a lot of RAM and it used AMDs at a time when Intel was inferior (prior to the Core2 lineup - you remember those Pentium 4s).

AMDs were notably great with image editing, especially paired with Photoshop and 3D studios. However, that all started to change right around the time "The Lord of the Rings" (produced on Dells) came out, Hollywood started switching to non-Apple for professional business use. When the Core2 line came out, Apple dropped AMD and businesses had access to cheaper machines with the same processor (Intel) - big brands didn't offer AMD at the time. Hollywood stars still use[d] Apples for their personal machines.

"Professional" should not be taken literally, though. In the sense that people here are talking about, it is generally used to describe business professionals, which the majority use Microsoft Office and Windows.


RE: Professional?
By borismkv on 9/29/2010 12:45:28 PM , Rating: 2
Umm...Apple never used AMD processors. Prior to switching to Intel, they used processors developed by Motorola specifically for Apple, which, despite the bluster of Mac fanbois, were extremely slow in comparison to Intel and AMD's processors.


RE: Professional?
By vol7ron on 9/29/2010 11:22:17 PM , Rating: 1
Was it Motorolla? You're right, though, it wasn't AMD. I can't remember why I wrote that (maybe because of the ATI AGPs they used); still it wasn't AMD-ATI then.

I think they used some IBM procs for enterprise servers. I'll take your word for Motorolla, though. Regardless, I remember the performance tests of the time when it came to media compressions and performance (IntelPCs:shitty and Apple&AMDs:good).

Still Hollywood and apple were like fingers crossed, up until the early part of the millenium.




It doesn't apply, but something interesting:
http://www.amd.com/us/aboutamd/corporate-informati...

2001
AMD Athlon™ MP processor debuts: the company's first multiprocessing platform.
AMD HyperTransport™ technology is adopted by Agilent, Apple Computer, Broadcom, Cisco Systems, IBM, nVidia, Sun, and Texas Instruments.


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