***The Official Blackberry Playbook Thread***

I haven't had a tablet yet (find my SGSII does most stuff I think I might use on for, especially a 7" one), but at that price the 64GB playbook looks tempting... I fancy getting one at that price and then selling it on if after a few months if I find it to be superfluous, hopefully I'd still get £90+ for it then? Any views?

Edit: Decided against it, I'll wait a bit longer and maybe get a 10.1 tablet if prices come down some more... I think the low price drew me in without me properly thinking about it.
 
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cu3ed said:
I would go as far to say I wouldn't have bothered with the N7 if I knew this kind of price was going to be released.
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The Nexus is in a different league unless you need the space.

The things I didn't like

Speed. The Browser was slow and would crash
Poor battery life. Sleep was very heavy on the battery
Lack of apps
Sound quality. I had clicking on mine over headphones.
Future support.

These are key things for a tablet.

Pay the difference and buy a Nexus, that's my advice.
 
I tried 2 and took both back as had distortion on audio (in particular Youtube) - that sounded like "cracking" really was not pleasant to my ears either via headphones or the internal speakers :(

I guessed it was an OS bug - BUT there was no way to easily change /downgrade - so took them back

it seemed it the source volume > a certain volume you got this nasty cliipping, now you could argue the source is at fault, but all my other 3 devices - Iphone, Ipad3, and PC played the same source files back with no audible artifacts whatsoever

that plus quite a few youtube videos would not play in the integrated youtube app - they'd come up as "not supported" or something - well - I'd had enough
 
The n7 has a shed load of problems with it aswell. I'd have brought a n7 if it had more storage and hdmi out.

Considering I brought a crappy Chinese copy android tablet a few months ago for £180 and now you can get these PlayBook (which I'm typing on btw :) )for £129 you'd be an idiot to turn it down.

Even if the software updates were dead in the water for the playbook it would still be a bargain. If you want a tablet for social networking, surfing emails and watching things like 4od this is the only tablet you need for the price.
 
hardkore said:
The n7 has a shed load of problems with it aswell. I'd have brought a n7 if it had more storage and hdmi out.

Considering I brought a crappy Chinese copy android tablet a few months ago for £180 and now you can get these PlayBook (which I'm typing on btw :) )for £129 you'd be an idiot to turn it down.

Even if the software updates were dead in the water for the playbook it would still be a bargain. If you want a tablet for social networking, surfing emails and watching things like 4od this is the only tablet you need for the price.
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Do you have or have you used a Playbook for any amount of time?

I have had zero issues with my N7. Its fast, reliable, great battery life and just works.

The Playbook was slow, apps are poor, browser crashes on certain site (try XDA ), battery life is terrible, WiFi issues, it's heavy. I can't think of anything good about it apart from it being cheap. Which isn't a good reason for buying it.

I really can't stress how much better the experience is on a N7.

There is a reason why its so cheap!
 
I brought a playbook yesterday for the gf and a n7 for me about 2 hours ago. Both are good so far except 4od wont play on the n7. The n7 keyboard is rubbish as it misses half of the letters I hit out but I like everything else.

Me and my gf have had no issues with the blackberry at all! You must have a faulty one buddy.
 
I am pleased to see so many people picking these up, very underrated IMH :)

I would suggest upgrading to the latest Dev beta OS as it improves performance with Android player and browser plus battery life seems improved.
 
Had mine for nearly six hours now. Had a bit of trouble updating the OS, kept error'ing but it did work after a few tries.

Used the default browser and Dolphin, leaning more towards the default. Did a bit of gaming; NFS Undercover, Tetris and some frisbee game. Impressed so far, just need to sideload a few apps and it'll be perfect for me.
 
I don't see how you can say the battery life is poor, I have had 10 hours watching 720p movies. That's not poor, at all.

The default browser is very good imo, no issues at all.

What wifi issues?

It's heavy, yeah, but I've never given a toss about weight personally, but I can understand why that puts someone off; it's a very solid feeling bit of kit and it's build quality is above anything bar Apple stuff tablet wise.
 
well just recieved the 64gb version today, loading some apps and puzzle games for my mom.
so far loving the feel of it, appworld seems a bit laggy though.
any tips and recommendations for using this little gadget?
also any useful apps?
 
As far as app world being laggy IMO thats blackberry servers. Its practically identicle on my phone as my playbook. I often find blackberry app servers terribly slow to respond on the phone so why I think its the same servers supplying the playbook.

Maybe its me but I am very meh about apps in general a few are handy but I am yet to find anything an app would transform my life over. Handy yes, simplyfy a few things yes, but a bit like bragging my top speed for my car is 167mph when the legal limit in the UK is 70 seems to be the main thing about apps, "yeah ive got xxx apps on my ipad and your xxxxx device is crap as apple have more apps available"

The playbook is a very well built tab for sure, clearly aimed at a much higher proce point, the OS isn't dead and realistically the life of this kind of tech is what 2-3 years max if you want to reasonably follow trends. As we stand right now a 64GB for £129 is giveaway. The upgrade from 16gb to 64GB costs more than that on an ipad.

There are some common issues with connectivity it seems initially but once registered it seems fine. Mine downloaded the 500MB+ OS upgrade in about 30 mins, hardly slow.

No tablet is perfect yet for everyone, I still find the ability to link to my work blackberry great, full access to work emails etc on a bigger screen and the revised OS cleared the vast majority of the initial complaints people had.

I play a few flash games and it copes with them really well.
 
The Asgard said:
The Nexus is in a different league unless you need the space.

The things I didn't like

Speed. The Browser was slow and would crash
Poor battery life. Sleep was very heavy on the battery
Lack of apps
Sound quality. I had clicking on mine over headphones.
Future support.

These are key things for a tablet.

Pay the difference and buy a Nexus, that's my advice.
Click to expand...

I'd suspect a bug if it's slow. Other than the app store everything seems pretty quick to me.
Battery life isn't incredible but it's only a problem if it becomes your do-all device; I still use my phone for most things and it's not a problem
Tablets arguably don't need apps as much as other formats
Sound quality- again that's clearly a bug either with your headphones or your copy, in any case the Nexus 7 quality control hasn't been great either, and the sound quality is poo compared to the Playbook
Future support - they've already announced the Playbook will get BB OS 10, I don't know how much more future support you want?
 
Bought the wife one of these and she tried to play Bejewelled, but the screen moved when she wanted to drag a jewel. How can you play a game and move a character etc around without dragging the screen instead?
 
Really want something that is e-reader size and am toying with the idea of one of these simply for the extra you get from it. The only problem I have is that I have a £50 WHSmith giftcard which I could use for a Kobo or put towards one of the better ones (the vox?).

A question I have about the PB is: Is there an app that allows streaming either directly from a NAS or via a pc? Currently I use Kalemsoft media player on my Touchpad so am looking for something similar. Direct streaming would be perfect. How well does it cope playing 1080p content or does it need converting to 720p to be able to be played smoothly?
 
-BA- said:
Really want something that is e-reader size and am toying with the idea of one of these simply for the extra you get from it. The only problem I have is that I have a £50 WHSmith giftcard which I could use for a Kobo or put towards one of the better ones (the vox?).

A question I have about the PB is: Is there an app that allows streaming either directly from a NAS or via a pc? Currently I use Kalemsoft media player on my Touchpad so am looking for something similar. Direct streaming would be perfect. How well does it cope playing 1080p content or does it need converting to 720p to be able to be played smoothly?
Click to expand...

Plays 1080 fine, certainly the files ive tried (demo clips). I havent managed to get it to play from my NAS, i have tried a couple of apps without success. I havent tried that hard though as I can strem with my Note or TF300 with the included apps.
 
Selling my Playbook was the best move I ever made, tablet-wise. Awesome build quality, but horrible, horrible software. I honestly wouldn't buy another one even for £50.

Android is literally 10x better than this overall in terms of overall functionality, and that is an objective opinion based on 6 months of use. Much better to spend a little extra and buy a Nexus 7.
 
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