RIM Says PlayBook is Still Great Without a BlackBerry

In one of RIM’s recent videos demoing their upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, product manager Ryan Bidan asserted that even without a smartphone to Bridge it to (thus enabling standard PIM stuff like e-mail, contacts, memopad, and calendar), the PlayBook is still a great tablet for multimedia, apps, and web browsing.

That’s part true – the PlayBook can handle multiple 3D renderings and HD streaming thanks to its new OS and dual-core 1 GHz processor, and 1 GB of RAM. The 7-inch 1024 x 600 display, HDMI-out port, stereo speakers, 5 megapixel camera plus forward-facing 3 megapixel HD camera make the thing great for both capturing and displaying media. I don’t know if it’s still a great tablet without a BlackBerry, though; RIM’s making it perfectly clear that if you want something functional for day-to-day stuff, you want a BlackBerry smartphone, and a PlayBook if you want to back it up with some multimedia oomph.

I had gone on at length as to why RIM would want to make a PlayBook dependent on a BlackBerry smartphone for what many consider to be core functions, and even cited the aforementioned video where Bidan elaborated on how Bridge would work. Basically, no important or sensitive information resides on the PlayBook without having a BlackBerry paired, mainly to keep enterprise admins happy. Bidan also suggests in the video that they’ll eventually enable the PlayBook to do e-mail on its own like a real big-boy tablet, but by the time the OS is updated, a lot of folks will have become disenchanted and gone with one of the many Android offerings instead. One would hope that once Sprint launches the PlayBook, such a software update would be available, and that BlackBerry Enterprise Server software would also be updated so businesses could properly manage tablets without relegating them to Bluetooth peripheral status.

Maybe I’m just being too grumpy about the whole thing; what do you guys think, is the PlayBook still a good tablet even with the requirement to Bridge for e-mail and other personal information management apps?

About The Author

Simon Sage

Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.

Gameboy213

I get why they did it like this for the IT crowd and corp security…. But as a blackberry user and an ipad user it seems like a huge misstep. Made me pass on even thinking about getting one.

Needs to be updated quickly.
TK

It will be funny when this is released. You will see someone using it and say
You:Nice device to bad you can’t check your email
Playbook Owner: Wtf
You: Yeah you need a BIS account to check your email.
Playbook owner:BIS?
You:Yeah, you know that account you pay $10/month to have your email pushed.
Playbook Owner:I have to pay $10/month to read my email?
You:No you have to pay $10/month for BIS
Playbook Owner:BIS? So I can still check my gmail/hotmail etc emails?
You: Yeah but you won’t have BIS push email
Playbook Owner: BIS? Are you okay?
Moe

This is perfect example of a “storm in a glass of water” Look around most people check their e-mail on their cell phone and/or computer so unless you use only your browser to access them, you already have at least 2 copies of the same e-mail on your e-mail clients, do you really need another copy for your pad too? Lets get real, all this bitching and whining about the lack of e-mail client is as lame as the Iphone’s “glassgate”

For REAL people a shortcut to the web page to access your e-mail is as useful. If you really need an app for that third copy of your e-mail, do you really think an app won’t be available? We get it you love apple more than anyone else and dying to find flaws.
http://www.intomobile.com/ Simon Sage

Actually, I hate Apple more than anyone else, and am the only one of the editors who doesn’t use a Mac.

If I don’t need native e-mail on a tablet because I’ve got a computer or a phone pretty much everywhere I go, I guess I don’t need a browser, music, or just about anything else on a tablet either, right? If people are paying $500 and up for the PlayBook, they deserve to have a fully-encapsulated experience on par with a netbook, and not be forced into compromise with the browser, Bridge, third-party apps, or waiting for an OS update just to get e-mail. Any of those will provide PIM access, sure, but why would end-users opt for those less-than-ideal situations when these simple things are non-issues on competing tablets? Security? Anyone outside of enterprise who is remotely worried about that will just put a password on the screen lock and be perfectly happy.
Moe

Again, If you really need an app for that third copy of your e-mail, do you really think an app won’t be available from RIM?

“do e-mail on its own like a real big-boy tablet”??? I think you should do a little research about QNX, it didn’t appear last summer, it has tons of native apps from e-mail clients to games already developed for the OS all RIM has to do is just compile them and make them available.

QNX has been around for a long time. QNX is a unix like OS, it is a big time full OS POSIX compliant and not just a “mobile” OS. Its modular and it doesn’t require a full OS update to add functionality, ask anyone who has been using it for years like people in nuclear plans.

When it comes to tablets not everyone that buy one use it for the same thing as everybody else, take for example the Ipad, some got it use primarily as e-reader, others for multimedia and web browsing, some for working, others just use to kill time with games and while reading e-mail is perhaps one of the top 10 things people will do with a pad most will simply login using the web.

About blackberry messaging, BIS will be available even to non-blackberry devices, RIM is playing all angles here.
http://www.intomobile.com/ Simon Sage

I’m sure an app will be available eventually, but my frustration stems from the very fact that RIM and QNX have the technical ability to pull off a standalone e-mail client, but they won’t do it in time for launch. Maybe it’ll only take a week after launch for them to send out the update, maybe it’ll take months; the point is, most consumers will have no idea how long they’ll be waiting, and will probably shape their buying decision around that random X factor.

You’re right that these are multifaceted devices, but the numbers say the top thing people spend their mobile internet time on is e-mail. http://www.intomobile.com/2011/01/06/38-per-cent-mobile-internet-time-e-mail-usage/ It’s what RIM’s good at, and as such, they should be providing an excellent e-mail experience on the PlayBook at launch right out of the box, not just a passable one. It’s certainly what people are (not unreasonably) expecting. Owners will be logging in through the web for e-mail because the PlayBook shoves them in that direction, not because it’s the best way to go about that particular task.
Moe

A native PIM/Email/Calendar suite is already available for QNX for desktop and it has been for long time now and that is not the only one, there are like 10 alternatives, even plans to make Evolution available are in place. RIM has the source code for it and all they need to do is compile it, they don’t need a full OS update just make it available just push the icon just like they do in blackberry’s, it is quite possible that some will be available over the app store at launch.

The product hasn’t been released yet and you are frustrated over something that may be or may not be available? Lets see, are you as frustrated over XOOM using (or not) motoblur? or the Ipad 2 not coming with Iris screen? of course not!

The problem I have with you article is that gives the impression that the playbook will be near useless without a blackberry and that is not the case, but just to be clear this is what RIM is trying to say: there is a perk if you also have a blackberry: You can access everything from your blackberry by just pairing it you see things EXACTLY as they look on your blackberry but bigger, just like a magnifying glass and you won’t have to worry about people peeking your blackberry through your playbook. Thats all it is: a perk that rewards loyalty. If you don’t have a blackberry thats all you are missing.

More and more people are using their browser to check e-mail because is easy and convenient, not because they are being push to it.
http://www.intomobile.com/ Simon Sage

To be honest, the PlayBook is the only tablet I have much of a vested interest in, but if I was an Apple fan and the iPad 2 launched with the same resolution screen, I’d be pretty disappointed. Motoblur never bothered me that much, but if I was big on Android, I might have a more boisterous opinion on the Xoom.
I certainly hope that the selection for e-mail clients for the PlayBook will be as rich as you say, and that Bridge isn’t the exclusive means of app-based e-mail on it at launch. Sadly, RIM hasn’t been particularly reassuring on that front, and unless they’re just being coy or cryptic, all we can really assume right now about the PlayBook the day it comes out is what they have told us for sure: all native PIM apps will disappear unless a BlackBerry is paired up. It’s not so much that I think the PlayBook will be useless; it’s more that reserving e-mail, contacts, memopad and other built-in apps as loyalty perks rather than core functions available to anyone willing to pony up $500 strikes me as an easy way to estrange anyone not already in the BlackBerry family.
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Simon Sage (via BlackBerry)
Senior Editor at IntoMobile.com
Moe

I agree with you that RIM hasn’t been really good at giving details about blackberry core functionality and that has lead to “worse case scenario” thinking. Until the playbook was announced, blackberry always kept things under wraps just allowing few “leaks” along the way, this time around they are following Apple and hype up the product months in advance.

If RIM play gets it right the playbook has the chances of being the most successful tablet and stop the exodus from its smartphone to other platforms. I am looking forward to the future blackberry phones that will come out with QNX OS and TAT interface by next fall or Winter because if the playbook is any indication of the direction RIM is taking, what is coming must be amazing.
Justsittingpretty

i have been waiting for the Playbook to come out, but being a IPhone user and loving it…….I will not give it up for a blackberry smartphone to get my email and such. I want the smaller size rather than the large ‘where do you put it’ IPad. Oh well, your are right .. I am becoming very disenchanted already and probably will go ahead with the Galaxy.