Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2011
I've had my playbook for over a week now, and I feel like I can finally write an objective review. I'll have to admit, I am a blackberry "fan boy", I have had a blackberry for years now, and I currently have a Bold 9700, so I am able to bridge my devices, but this is an in-depth look with as little "bias" as possible.
Pros :
--------------
Hardware - This is truly an impressive piece of hardware. The construction is fantastic, its easy to hold, its light, and it feels solid in my hands. The screen is fantastic, very crisp and displays images/videos/text with very sharp clarity. I loaded up a bunch of pictures on my playbook just so I can look at the beautiful screen. Everything is so clear, its such a pleasure to look at. The device is also very fast, launching applications, loading web pages, and switching between apps are blazingly fast. The camera is also good. The back facing one is 5 MP and it takes good pictures, and HD quality video (however no flash :( )
Ease of Use - I have to admit when I first tried it out at Best Buy, I had no idea what I was doing, and I couldn't figure out how to do anything. I've had plenty of apple devices so I thought the missing "Home" button was an issue, and it left me scratching my head. However, once I read up on it a little more, and found you can do everything with some simple gestures, I was hooked. I multi-task a lot, and switching between applications is so easy, just a simple swipe from the bezel in and you're in a different app. Bringing up the "Home" screen, closing apps, getting to the status bar are all easily done with some simple gestures. I have to say, now that I've gotten used to it, I love it and could never go back to the "Apple" way!
Multi-tasking - As I mentioned, I am really used to multi-tasking, so switching between applications is just what I do. I might read some articles, then browse a site, change the music, and then go back to reading the news. This is all a snap with the playbook, and the speed at which it does it is seamless.
Form Factor - This is a preference but for me the 7" form factor is great. I don't really like watching videos on handheld devices (or even my laptop) so this was not a big requirement. I tried out the Xoom and iPad 2 and I have to say, it was stellar at showing off videos. But, I felt it was a little cumbersome, and if I wanted to just grab a device, check up on some scores, and look at some news, I wanted it to be easy to hold in one hand. Also, due to its size, its very easy to carry, and I don't feel like I am holding a laptop.
Browser - This is great. Every page I normally go to loads perfectly, and with the flash support, I get the full web experience. Also, going to foreign sites renders the characters properly as well. The only issue I've seen is on some of the more advanced sites, the pages will complain that I am on an "older browser" but that also means I am getting the full version of the site, and not a mobile version.
Battery Life - I wanted to call this out because before the 1.0.5 OS update, this was a HUGE issue. The playbook would drain power like nobody's business, and I couldn't even leave it on standby overnight. However, this was all fixed with the recent update, now I can browse around and use apps for a few hours, and still have plenty of battery. Just the other day, I left my playbook on standby overnight, and it only drained a few percentage points. So what was a huge negative has become a positive with a simple update. This also goes to show you, RIM is committed to releasing updates quickly and getting the OS up to par with other devices out there.
Cons :
--------------
Lacking Apps - This is probably the single biggest complaint you read about, "not enough apps". This is a real issue. A lot of my favorite apps are missing, including Pandora, Kindle, KeePass (password management) and SSH (sys admin software). These are key apps I use on my bold every day, and without it, it is a big issue. However, one recent addition to the app world has boosted the score for me, and thats the blackberry news reader. I was using GeeReader since that was the only decent RSS feed reader available, but blackberry just released the news reader, and it is fantastic. I do see new apps crop up everyday in app world, and the Android app reader is going launch soon, so I think this will improve. (the FB app, word and acrobat apps are great as well)
Lack of Connectivity - If you're on wireless, the playbook is great, but without it, it is seriously disabled. I tried to take it to the gym to try it out while I work out, and I couldn't do much even when bridged. The reason being, the bridge browser is so slow, I couldn't use it. This could be partly due to my bold, but still, it was unusable. I did get tethering to work, but I tried to install an app, and that didn't work either, so there were some limitations there as well. I think if you're not on wifi, there will be some issues with using it.
UPDATE 2
-------
I mentioned that the small power button was an issue due to coming out of standby, but there's actually a "swipe" shortcut. All you have to do is swipe from bezel to bezel, and that brings the playbook out of standby, so no more fiddling around with the small power button! Previous comment is below for reference
(Small Power Button - When I first read complaints about this, I thought people were being nitpicky since how often do you use the power button? Well as it turns out quite a bit. The reason is, its the only way to come out of standby for the playbook. I setup my device to standby after a few minutes to conserve power, and so whenever it goes to standby, I have to press the power button, and I end up doing it at least 2-3 times to get it right.)
UPDATE
-------
I originally commented about the bad memory management, but it looks like this was also fixed in the 1.0.5 OS release. Now, when there are no apps running, there is almost 700 MB of free memory, and even with the browser open, I still have 500+ MB free. This should allow me to run way more apps at a time, and see less of the "automatic" closing that I saw before. Previous comment is below for reference
(Bad Memory management - This is a big sticking point for me. The playbook has 1 gb of ram, so I didn't think it would be an issue but boy is it ever! First off, when you start up the playbook, there's only 450 MB of memory free. Then, if you launch the browser, another 200+ MB is gone right there. So, if you have more than a few apps open and the browser, the playbook will just start closing apps automatically. When this first happened, I thought pages were crashing because of the flash or lots of media content, but after some poking around, I realized it was because of the "low" memory. Also, when I say "low" memory, its not like 50 mb, its more like anything under 150 MB and the playbook could start closing apps automatically.)
--------------
Overall, I love my playbook, and I want to give it 5 stars, but I just can't. Once there are more apps available, this will be a solid 5 stars. Also, for non blackberry users, the lack of a native mail client will be a big turn off. But because the browser is so capable, it should ease the pain slightly. The playbook is a great device for RIM to build off of, and I think the next coming months will be key for them, and if they can address some the issues, it will be a true force in the tablet market.
