For those looking to nail down a launch date for RIM’s tablet, Trinidad & Tabago’s TSTT’s Jay Alvi has said they plan on launching the BlackBerry PlayBook this February. That falls in line with RIM’s established early 2011 launch window, and also conveniently lands on the month of Mobile World Congress, where co-CEO Mike Lazaridis will be issuing a keynote.
The BlackBerry PlayBook was announced at the end of September, and generally blew everybody’s socks off. It’s boasting a dual-core 1 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, 5 megapixel camera on the back, 3 megapixel camera on the front, and a 7″ 1024 x 600 capacitive touchscreen. Arguably the most impressive feature of all is the brand new operating system made by QNX. It’s light, it’s fast, and multitasks like woah. I’m particularly excited to see this OS find its way onto RIM’s smartphones, but that probably won’t happen for a little while still.
A February launch is interesting timing since it’s when wallets are still a might empty from Christmas, but it’s also not trying to shoulder into the busy summer or fall, where the PlayBook could just be drowned out by other products. Whenever it launches, it’ll be giving the Apple iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab a run for their money, but who knows what other tablets will be available by that time?
Curious to see how she runs? Check out this live demo of the BlackBerry PlayBook from Adobe MAX a few weeks ago.