Fill it to the RIM — With Fail
February 24th, 2012 - 9:10 am
The Verge did a scarily in-depth review of RIM’s new PlayBook 2, but I’ve got the bullet-point version.
• “Most of the bugs are finally gone,” they say. So RIM’s got that going for them. Which is nice.
• It has email! Not very good email, but still.
• It can run some Android apps in emulation or something, because almost nobody is developing native apps for it.
• It’s the exact same hardware.
You read that last one right: PlayBook 2 runs on the same hardware as the original PlayBook, which sucked in comparison to 2010′s iPad 1. What RIM is pitching as PlayBook 2, is really just an OS upgrade — something Apple offers its iOS customers for free each year.
I think RIM has gone past “fail” and into “doom.”
200 bucks for a 16 Gb Playbook? What is RIM smoking? In spite of what you can read in some reviews (I’m look at you, ZDNet.), the Playbook still can’t compete with a Kindle Fire for user experience, ecosystem, etc.
I’ll stick with this IPad, thanks!
It depends what you want it for. $200 for a tablet with decent cameras (7″ portability) and good speakers will mean a better user experience (vs Fire) for some. It’s not about the (paid) content for everyone. It has tempted me but haven’t bitten yet (better to wait for the 7″ Asus memo) though I can see that there are many true believers at the Crackberry forum.
I would really love the RIM that made the Blackberry World Edition smartphone to come back. Either that, or it can allow itself to be bought out by Google, or something. This “we’re making Blackberries that uses a proprietary OS, but can run Android apps too!” is getting confusing and won’t work in the long run.