We just heard that Research in Motion is selling the BlackBerry PlayBook at the reduced holiday prices direct to customers.
At the time of this post, however, http://store.shopblackberry.com is down, presumably due to the site being overloaded from all the people trying to pick up the PlayBook. We wondered if the BlackBerry PlayBook, even at $199, would be worth it. From the speed at which retailers are selling out of the device at this price, I would say that ideed, it is…
The device is DEAD. I am not sure it would be a big “seller” if it were given away for free. Who would want it? I am being totally serious. The shame of this is that it is just an illustration of how clueless, how inept, RIM has been – even though I really love my 9900 …. I have a feeling that Blackberry will soon be a partner of Palm Pilot in the annals of disasters, blown opportunity.
you criticize the device but don’t say what’s wrong with it, well i like it for its portability, screen resolution, great browser, bridging to my Blackberry gives me email, internet connection anywhere, no need for another data plan, is that enough reasons why this device is far from dead?
Do you really need the reasons spelled out for you? The only difference between this and the HP TouchPad’s 6-week run is that RIM is too arrogant/jaded to recognize a mistake and get out of it. The Amazon Fire is a perfect example of how you compete with Apple without actually competing with Apple. That device has virtually the same chassis as a BB Playbook. To the average consumer, “Amazon” and the “Amazon Marketplace” offer better name recognition and a promise of content than RIM/BlackBerry possibly could, at least in terms of what would be important for a TABLET computer.
Yet, because Amazon targeted $199 for their 7″ device while RIM came in at virtually the same price as an iPad, the perception from Day One was that Playbook was trying to be an iPad killer. Samsung Galaxy and some of the Sony Tablets may be able to play that game, but the Playbook is far inferior to those devices. Not only does the Playbook lack the depth of applications available in iTunes or Android Marketplace, it is STILL missing basic elements like a native email client that you find on all other tablets, and even BlackBerry Phones!
Seriously, if you never used another tablet and money didn’t matter to you, then sure, the Playbook would be fine. So would the TouchPad, or anything put out by Acer, Viewsonic, or any other company. But when people try to defend the Playbook, they sound like they’re okay with it being nothing more than a blow-up screen for their BlackBerry. To each his own, I guess. Just got an iPad2 and am blown away with the depth and ease-of-use that a real OS offers. QNX is alright from what I hear, but both it and BlackBerry App World are stuck on an island. Amazon Fire is an example of what BlackBerry could have done a year ago to have a shot at competing. As it were, there’s a reason these things are on firesale by RIM and the retailers…