The rumored Blackberry tablet has finally arrived, and in a big way! Welcome to the scene, Blackberry PlayBook!
RIM Founder and Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis announced the new tablet device at DEVCON earlier today in San Francisco, CA. During the presentation Mike held a PlayBook in his hands and welcomed to the stage guests such as the founder of QNX Dan Dodge and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen to specifically talk about the tight integration QNX and Adobe will have with the PlayBook.
Here is the introduction that they provided to the PlayBook at DEVCON:
This bad boy is packing some SERIOUS specs. With a 7-inch hi-res (1024 x 600, WSVGA) widescreen display (multi-touch), being 9.7 mm thick, and weighing less than a pound, this device is ultra-portable and is slightly smaller than an iPad. The device will have a 1 GHz dual-core (with symmetrical multiprocessing capabilities) processor, and 1 GB RAM to allow fo full optimization of that dual core. The Playbook will come with Flash 10.1 (including hardware accelerated video), HTML 5, and support 1080p video. Some other intriguing parts of the PlayBook puzzle include non-proprietary HDMI and USB connections, full-HD front and rear-facing cameras (3 MP front facing, 5 MP rear facing), as well as support for dual-displays. Even more exciting for corporate users, it will be able to connect with BlackBerry Enterprise Servers out of the box via Bluetooth secure pairing to BlackBerry. Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n) is included and RIM plans to roll out 3G and 4G models in the near future.
I have to say that I was extremely surprised, and impressed to say the least, by those specs. RIM had to go above and beyond the iPad to avoid the "Copy Cat" tag, and that they did!
Perhaps the most exciting part of this is how heavily involved QNS was in the creation of this device and that Blackberry is FINALLY adopting a new OS! What this means for the mobile users here is yet to be seen, but I can only imagine good things!
The Blackberry PlayBook is expected to be available in retail outlets and through other channels in the United States in early 2011 with roll outs in international markets beginning in Q2 of 2011.
More information as it becomes available. Who wants a PlayBook?!
More images of the PlayBook OS can be found here
Credit: WB
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