Blog: All About BlackBerry ‘PlayBook’

RIM (Research In Motion), introduces BlackBerry PlayBook, an ultra thin mobile tablet with a design that makes it very convenient to carry. It is half inch thick and holds the secrets of greatest creation in the world of mobiles in it.

“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. The BlackBerry PlayBook solidly hits the mark with industry leading power, true multitasking, uncompromise web browsing and high performance multimedia,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion.

Design: With 7″ high resolution display, the mobiles adds style and grace to your personality. Its 1024×600 screen weighs 0.9 pounds, thus making smaller and lighter than the iPad, with a more pixel-dense screen. It’s a little bigger and heavier than the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Operating System: BlackBerry PlayBook is running BlackBerry tablet OS, which is “powered by QNX technology.” QNX is a software company RIM bought in April, whose software is used in products by Cisco and GE, among others. The OS is built on QNX’s Neutrino microkernel.

Multi-tasking: The implication is that the PlayBook will let things run willy nilly in the background, more like a standard BlackBerry mobile phone.

Built-in Flash and AIR: It runs Flash and AIR, which means that the flash websites that don’t work on the iPad will be viewable on the PlayBook. Combined with the WebKit browser, it should be a pretty decent web experience.

Dual Camera: BlackBerry PlayBook has dual camera, the rear camera is a 5-megapixel shooter, while the front is three megapixels. From the back, it shoots video and from the front you can video chat.

Video Players: It supports a handful of video formats—in 1080p—like h.264, WMV, DivX and MPEG, and it’ll output video through a mini HDMI port. Also, it’s got a standard micro USB port.

Availability: RIM says it’s coming out in the US in early 2011, with other places getting it sometime after March. There’s gonna be 3G and 4G models in the future. RIM has not disclosed its price yet.