It seems like a week doesn’t go by without a new tablet introduction or announcement. This week wasn’t any different as RIM shipped their new BlackBerry PlayBook to customers, and to me. What makes this one very interesting is that it is the first tablet from RIM, best known for their BlackBerry smartphones and strong ties into businesses with their BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES).

In 48 hours, there is no way to test everything a user would ever do, so I focused on my personal usage models or those that I think are common to most users.

Physical Design

The PlayBook feels very durable and dense, like my iPhone 4. It has a rubberized backing that feels very solid to the touch. There are 4 buttons at the top of the unit; power, play/pause, volume up and volume down. It just feels premium. The frame of the display is touch sensitive which becomes beneficial when I talk about gestures below. Two stereo speakers are integrated into the right and left of the unit when in horizontal mode.

Display

The 7″ display seemed very bright. In fact, it’s one of the brightest I have ever used on a tablet. It worked quite well, even in sunlight. The 1024×600 resolution isn’t impressive on its own, but I didn’t have any issues with it on a 7″ screen. If you normalize the resolution against the 7″ screen, it’s pushing more pixels/mm2 than either the iPad or the Xoom. I didn’t notice any bleeding or smudging either.

Setup

The setup was the most painful so far I have ever experienced on a tablet or with any CE devices for the last few years. It sounds simple; connect to WiFi, pick time zone, create a BlackBerry ID, then use it.  Mine didn’t work out like that.  First, I set mine up near a public WiFi, so I needed to connect to a guest WiFi where you agree to terms, etc. Just like a coffee shop, airport, hotel, or public WiFi. Unlike the iPad, there isn’t a browser in Setup to “agree to the terms.” So I turned to my Atrix 4G/HPSA+ Hotspot. OK, we’re in.

Next step was to download a 270MB update file….. Remember this is over the Atrix hot spot with AT&T and one of their plans is capped at 250MB per month. I had a choice…go home or to work or use my hot spot now. I picked now, downloaded it over 4G/HSPA+ and ate someone’s complete month of data. I waited for it to download then waited for it to install, then rebooted. It must be done, right? I was now prompted to go through a tutorial, a forced one, no opting out, on the gestures. I passed that test and was now ready to jam on the PlayBook and download some apps. Not so fast.

I was continually experiencing error messages in App World. I couldn’t download or install any apps. I placed a post on the BlackBerry Support Community to see if I could get some help there. A few hours later a kind person replied but none of the solutions applied to my situation. I completely erased the PlayBook to see if that would help. I went through the exact same procedure as above… WiFi, date/time, update, reboot, tutorial. That didn’t work and I logged an official question into BlackBerry Customer Support. No response.

At 9:30 AM the next day I got what was closer to a solution and was asked to look at this link. Basically it says that I had an App World account plus a PayPal account previously and the accounts weren’t linked. I did have a BlackBerry Bold back in 2009 and made purchases through PayPal. The solution was to go to a website, download an applet, and connect the PlayBook to my PC then link the PayPal account. Sounds easy enough, right?

Well, my computer running the Windows 7 operating system didn’t recognize the PlayBook connected over the USB cable. There were issues described here on USB, but I had enough. I wiped the PlayBook for the second time and created a new BlackBerry ID, connected to WiFi, downloaded the patch, reboot, went through gesture class again, and tried the App World again. Success…. two days later. I can now download and install apps on the PlayBook.  It shouldn’t be this difficult.

Gestures

The PlayBook sports the classic pinch and zoom, but it also has a very useful up-swipe and down-swipe that really helps with multitasking. Because the frame is touch-enabled, you swipe up on the frame to minimize and swipe down on the frame to see more options or content in the specific application. I REALLY liked this.

Virtual Keyboard

I was pleasantly surprised how responsive the keyboard was and how natural it was. I could successfully “thumb-type” as well and it was apparent they designed it to do this. The handling of numbers was brilliant. Instead of them shoved on the top bar which is hard to hit, they are assembled like a phone, making it easy to hit with my left thumb.

Web Browsing

This is one of the strongest points for the PlayBook. It has the closest experience to a low end PC of any tablet I have ever used. I say that because of the high degree of compatibility. It took on full Flash UI sites and it even successfully maneuvered some of the most difficult websites like LogMeIn.com remote access. That isn’t easy for a tablet. It even allowed for attachments to be uploaded and downloaded. So basically, most any  site you would want to connect to, the PlayBook has you covered. I would like some kind of bookmark syncing like Google Sync, XMarks, or Firefox Sync and folders. Also, I couldn’t figure out how to easily email a link of the web page, something I do often.

Wireless

The PlayBook supports WiFi 802.11b/g/n. As you have probably read, the PlayBook relies on a phone to get 3G/4G access. I say “phone” and not BlackBerry because anyone can use a phone that has a WiFi HotSpot and connect to it.  I hear that misperception often.   I did with my Atrix and connected over 4G/HSPA+. It felt slow transferring files over WiFi “n” but I didn’t do any speed tests.

Security

My experience with security was positive as it relates to getting onto the corporate LAN. The PlayBook is the FIRST tablet that I have used that successfully connected to the corporate LAN on the first try. It even did a proper security certificate handshake. You would expect this from BlackBerry, right? I am sure there are 1,000s of security details you can look up on your own such as the 256-bit AES protection and ties to BES, but I am evaluating it from a user standpoint, not IT.

Mail, Calendar, Contacts

The PlayBook does not ship with an integrated mail, calendar, or contacts application but are promising to do so in the future. I know, sounds unusual coming from the same folks who brought us BlackBerry, the first mobile mail, contacts and calendar that were truly portable. That forced me to use webmail to do this. Surprisingly, the PlayBook delivered the best tablet web-mail experience I have ever used. I used Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Outlook Web mail and even the Office 365 Beta. It worked well, even using attachments.

Video

Hands down the PlayBook delivered the best non-PC, local video experience of any tab I have used. For the web, the Flash video was so good I couldn’t even tell the difference between the YouTube app and the YouTube website. Until Hulu shut me down, I was actually watching some video and it looked good. The PlayBook supports many containers; avi, mp4, m4v, and will support up to 1080P at 30fps on H.264 HP format. That’s a plus. One huge downside for me was the lack of Amazon VOD or Netflix support.

The HDMI video out at 1080 is the best I have seen so far in a tablet, and I could mirror or go into presenter mode in certain applications.

Pictures

Pictures in the PlayBook are very spartan.  No folders, no geolocation, and no editing.  Dump files into the picture folder, and you get pictures.  I could do slide shows, but without folders and a lot of pictures, its tough.

Games

Games looked surprisingly good on the PlayBook. I was very impressed with the EA NFS Undercover. It looked good and played well, better than anything I’ve seen from the Tegra 2 camp.

Music

The music player is robust, straightforward and easy to use. Just dump your music into the music folder and it pulls in the art, track and album information, etc. BlackBerry has arranged with “7 Digital” music store to purchase albums and singles.

The stereo speakers were exceptional for a device this size.

Multitasking

The QNX OS appears built from the ground up to do multitasking. Users can task switch two ways; when an app is in focus, up-swipe and you will then see all the open apps, or simply side-swipe a full screen and you will switch to the next task. I could even see the video running while minimized and see a web site working… at the same time… very cool. That is more sophisticated and easier than iPad, Xoom, or Galaxy Tab.

App World

App World is the store to buy applications for the PlayBook. Once I got it working, it operated like you would expect an app store to. Find what you want, download it and it installs.  No frills, and straight forward, unlike the feature-rich, “amazing” Android Market. I didn’t see many apps that I love from the Android or iOS camps there. In fact I saw only one, MediaFly, that I recognized. I couldn’t even find a single Twitter client, and I can find 10 on iOS and Android. It was barren from my personal usage POV. Of course that will change over time, particularly with future support for Android phone apps, but this blog is about the here and now.

Other notables:

-          Responsiveness: The UI is very “smooth”, and only the iOS is close to it. I didn’t experience many hiccups or pauses.

-          Maps: Preinstalled is Bing Maps. It was hard to grow accustomed to and for me wouldn’t geo-locate me over WiFi.

-          Podcasts: This program works really well but lacked a lot of my favorite content like WSJ Tech Reports.

-          YouTube: Cannot be signed into like on iOS and Android. So no favorite lists or easy access to “Your Videos”. The YouTube web site worked really well though.

-          USB Connection: I had major connection issues and had to download USB drivers to connect. So year 2000….

-          Ports: headphone, quick charge, microHDMI, microUSB.

Conclusion

Like every product I use or have produced, the PlayBook has plusses and minuses. There are no perfect products.  What’s unique to the PlayBook is I get the feeling it could have been great. To date, it has the best web, video, multitasking, and one of the best looking games I have used on a tablet. On the other hand, setup was grueling, USB was intermittent, and there is no application for mail, calendar, or address book. To boot, only one of my favorite 50 applications was available and that didn’t work well. Of course, this will improve every day, and this blog is about the first 48 hours.

I will be using the PlayBook over the next few months, so let me know if you’d like me to try out something for you. I may even do a follow up in a few months.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

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