It’s a shame this group who have a BlackBerry PlayBook weren’t able to record a better video of the PlayBook in action. Currently, the PlayBook has gone out to select enterprise customers and this is when the leaks start to occur. Whoever has the PlayBook right now is probably pretty worried about getting pinched as it would cost their business a relationship with RIM. In any case, the team have put together some impressions in a writeup which is worth checking out. Highlights include:
UI is very appealing and fluid with no noticeable hang-ups or delays (even running the currently installed Beta QNX OS, which typically has more bugs than final releases).
Opened 12 applications and it didn’t miss a beat.
The PlayBook is very light (.9 LBS), yet feels solid and well built.
Feels better than the iPad in the sense that you can type in horizontal mode comfortably with thumbs, not feeling like you need to set it down.
Pairing your BlackBerry will allow mirroring of your device data (Email, Calendar, Contacts, Notes, Tasks, etc) on the Playbook without physically storing any data.
Your Playbook will also be able to share the data plan you already have on your BlackBerry
PlayBook was used very heavily for a full day only starting with slightly over half a charge and it ran the distance.
Jim Balsillie gave a brief hands on demo of the BlackBerry PlayBook at the Web 2.0 Summit and the multitasking looks incredible. As Jim browsed through multiple tabs, he really showed off the power of the QNX operating system and how it can handle multiple processes that include high definition video. Another great feature of this brief demo was the way gestures were used. Jim browsed through multiple cards and flicked them away with ease. This brief demo just gave the PlayBook +1000 in the awesome department.
BlackBerryCool is here at WES 2010 and Matt Cameron and I are representing the site. The first device I’ve used while here is the BlackBerry Pearl 3G, and I thought I would put together some impressions and pics for everyone.
The ‘TEM’ in momentem stands for “telecom expense management“, which sounds fairly abstract to those unfamiliar with the term. In the context of this extremely valuable business/prosumer application, what this means is the ability to measure the time and cost of practically everything you do on your BlackBerry by tagging it. That obviously sounds a little overwhelming, but momentem makes it fairly painless and extremely rewarding.
Last week, Redwood Technologies officially announced momentem’s availability in the UK via Orange, but Redwood actually gave us a build to play with during the BlackBerry Developer Conference. I’m pretty behind in delivering this hands-on impressions post, but that’s (mostly) because I wasn’t ready for how momentem was going to change the way I use my BlackBerry. If you consider yourself a power BlackBerry user in any fashion, you have to read this hands-on.
