Coming a few weeks before the BlackBerry World Conference to be held in Orlando, Florida, USA, 3-5 May 2011, PlayBook finally officially circulated. The first tablet made by Research In Motion Canada began to be enjoyed by consumers, on Tuesday (04/19/2011).
According to some analysts quoted by the Wall Street Journal sites, Research In Motion (RIM) is estimated to be able to distribute 2 million to 4 million BlackBerry Playbook for the year 2011. However, analyst firm Gartner predicted that tablet will not generate sales, better than the iPad or Android-based tablets.
Gartner's latest report, released 11 April 2011 shows, in 2015, Apple's IOS platform will still dominate the tablet market with 47.1 percent, 38.6 percent of Android, and QNX (RIM) 10 percent. The remaining 3 percent of the web OS, MeeGo 1 percent, and others 0.2 percent.
"It takes time and effort harder for RIM to attract developers and provides the ecosystem of applications and services that are appropriate for QNX to be competing with the IOS and Android," said Carolina Milanesi, Gartner Research VP. According to him, the biggest market for these tablets is the enterprise customers who are already using BlackBerry solutions for information technology services.
BlackBerry Playbook indeed been heralded comes with advanced features for professional users. The tablets also claimed the most support current web content, including full support Flash. PlayBook can also function as a mate for the BlackBerry because of its tethering feature can display e-mail, calendar, and other information available on the BlackBerry smartphone user.
RIM membanderol these tablets at the same price as its competitors. Currently only available WiFi model only at a price of 499 dollars for a model with a capacity of 16 GB of memory, 599 U.S. dollars for 32 GB, and 699 dollars for a model with a capacity of 64 GB of memory.
Full list of specifications are as follows:
- 7-inch 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)
- RIM intends to also offer 3G and 4G models in the future.