Finally a competitive price for a tablet

from Wikipedia

RIM’s iPad-competing BlackBerry PlayBook will launch for $499 on April 19
[Via AppleInsider]

Research in Motion on Tuesday announced the details for the launch of its BlackBerry PlayBook 7-inch touchscreen tablet, set to arrive on April 19 for a $499 starting price that matches Apple’s iPad.

[More]

But that is all that seems competitive.

Of course, with a much smaller screen, one would expect to pay less. Its like saying ‘Oh, this Toyota is the same price as a BMW’. May be true but the value is not the same.

The “world’s first professional-grade tablet?”  Really!

Sorry. I do not see how any 7-incher can be called professional grade. The keyboard takes up most of the screen for one thing. Reminds me of the old, old ‘portables’ that had like 8 lines of text.

Apple is giving us 21st Century tools. Others are giving us tools from 1983.

How about editing and uploading a professional level video for the news? Will it be able to do that?

From what I read, the Blackberry tablet will have to be tethered for syncing  to a Blackberry phone to be useful. Apple does not make you buy an iPhone to use the iPad. But Blackberry wants you to buy a Blackberry also. It won’t ship with the very tools – like email – that I need.

Out of the box it can surf the net. What else?

So, to have a Playbook and use it for my professional work, I have to have a Blackberry also. This from a company that does not like Apple controlling my choices. Seems to be doing a great job by itself.

And no word of battery performance? A smaller form factor means a smaller battery. I don’t see this coming anywhere close to the iPad’s 10 hours or more.

It took them a year to come out with a competitor that does not even match the usefulness and professionalism of the first iPad much less the iPad2.