Blackberry playbook price

Now that RIM has finally unveiled their iPad rival, the BlackBerry PlayBook, we thought some of you would appreciate a summary of how the PlayBook excels when directly compared to Apple’s iPad.
Let’s start with physical design, the PlayBook is just 10mm thick, whereas the iPad is 13.4mm thick, also the PlayBook weighs less at just 0.9lbs, whereas the lightest iPad weighs 1.5lbs. To be honest the weight difference isn’t surprising as the iPad’s 9.7 inch display is larger than the PlayBook’s 7 inch display.

The clarity of the displays should be pretty similar, this is because the PlayBook’s 7 inch display supports a resolution of 1024 x 600, whilst the iPad’s 9.7 inch display outputs at 1024 x 768.

The PlayBook should offer a great web experience as it features full Adobe Flash 10.1 and HTML 5 support, at the moment a high percentage of websites use Flash, however in the future it is thought that HTML 5 will take over, therefore the PlayBook should be compatible with pretty much every website you tried to view.

One thing I dislike about the iPad is the need for accessories such as the iPad Camera Connection Kit and the iPad Dock Connector to VGA Adapter, the PlayBook features a built-in microUSB connector and micro HDMI, these standardized connectors should allow you to easily connect your PlayBook to a wide-range of devices with a wide-range of cables.

The micro HDMI output allows your to connect your PlayBook to an external HD display, according to RIM’s website you will be able to stream video at 1080p, which is far superior to the iPad’s 576p output (via the Apple Component AV Cable).

When the iPad was revealed I was surprised that there was no built-in camera, the PlayBook features two camera, a 5 megapixel rear-facing camera and a 3 megapixel front-facing camera for video conferencing, these additions increase the PlayBook’s appeal, however no-doubt also increase its price.

Finally we will talk about performance, so far we haven’t seen a proper hands-on demo, however we do know that the PlayBook is capable of true multi-tasking, this is thanks to the combination of a 1 GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and BlackBerry Tablet OS, it will be interesting to see how this compares to the iPad’s 1GHz single core processor, 256MB of RAM and iOS.

The iPad’s build quality and software interactivity are in my opinion its best qualities, therefore I am sure RIM will do their utmost to match this, if the build quality of BlackBerry smartphones is anything to go by the PlayBook should be OK, however I do feel that RIM have a long way to come with touch screen intuitivity, what do you think?

Do you think the BlackBerry PlayBook will be better than the Apple iPad? The early signs are certainly promising.