Can BlackBerry PlayBook Threaten iPad?

[pallentx]

I'll let you know when its actually for sale and I can look at one. Until then, I'll be happily using my iPad. I wish them the best of luck though. Blackberry knows security and thats important to a lot of corporate users.

 

[Hasty]

No matter how good it is I would still prefer the larger screen size, especially if it was retina quality.....

 

[gentlefury]

I would have to say the true advantage the iPad has to all these clones is......YOU CAN BUY ONE!!!

Everything else is just vaporware until we see one in a store!

 

[joephoto]

The other advantage to the iPad here are the apps. Apple's system is heavily supported by quality developers. That's nothing to take lightly in the forthcoming "tablet wars". But I agree with others here in that the form factor is a little small on the Playbook. The small form factor may be a result of running such high speced hardware and trying to keep the battery life manageable. Obviously I don't know that for sure but I don't see any other reason to go with a smaller screen as you're really not saving much space over an ipad when it comes to portability once you factor in all the other junk you need (case, accessories, etc.)

I do like that BB didn't shy away from Flash, but I hope they give the ability to use it selectively like Android does. I'm not entirely sure if it's an Android thing, or a mobile Flash 10.1 thing; but with Android, while surfing flash content the user has to enable the flash instance as it's encountered. For example, if a web page has a flash ad and a flash video, the user will see two empty spaces with an arrow icon which they can click on to activate the particular Flash application of their choice or ignore them and browse without Flash running.

Regarding Android, it's actually a pretty cool system. I have a Droid 1 that runs stock Android 2.2 OS (no garbage included from the phone manufacturer) and it really is a feature packed system. It's basically a small computer, complete with an accessible file system. Among other things, they have features available like App Inventor where you can actually create your own fully featured applications and have removed the need to be a programmer to do so. So it's not that Google aren't being clever with Android. The problem is that for most people the Android OS can actually be too complex in some cases and it's definitely not as well marketed or focused at the consumer as Apple's products.

I think that complexity will allow for Android to be made into a nice tablet OS, something to likely to even replace a laptop, but IMO Android needs to partner with a very solid hardware company and really go all out with their official offerings. To date, the available Android tablets are all hacked together China knock-off hardware with the stock Android OS thrown on them.

If we can get some good serious competition in the "slate tablet" market it's going to mean better options for us.

 

[gentlefury]

I have flash on my droid and man it sucks!! So slow!

 

[joephoto]

I have flash on my droid and man it sucks!! So slow!

That has a lot to do with the processor being clocked at 550Mhz. If you root it and run a kernel that will allow you to clock at ~1Ghz, it's actually not bad.

What kills the Droid (or any phone) for me now is the screen size. The iPad screen size is spoiling me.

 

[IpadOne]

I would have to say the true advantage the iPad has to all these clones is......YOU CAN BUY ONE!!!

Everything else is just vaporware until we see one in a store!

And we have not see all , i am sure many will come out before christmas , but i am also sure most of them will postpond the launch or will do like M$ and is courier … the one i am really waiting is the HP with web OS …. i guess this can be a serious device