In April 19, 2011, United States of America became the first country chosen by Research in Motion (RIM) to release its first PC tablet named PlayBook. The company was previously known for its Blackberry Smartphone, and the production of these tablets indicates the participation of RIM in the tablet competition with Galaxy Tab and iPad. Below are the technical specifications of this Playbook tablet.
Design
The size does matter for a portable device; moreover the comfort is other consideration for users in picking the gadget that suits their needs. PlayBook has been designed to answer all of these consumer’s requirements. The device has a very light portable weight with only about 400 grams, it measures 130 mm in height, 193 mm in width and 10 mm in depth. With these dimension and weight, surely this tablet will bring the convenience and the portability at the same time. The tablet is lighter compared with other tablets such as the Apple iPad and Motorola Xoom.
Display
This portable tablet features a 7-inch LCD touch screen with capacitive multi-touch capability. The display has the resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels with the wide screen’s aspect ratio of 16: 9. This responsive and convenient display also has been added with sensor capability of 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope and 3-axis magnetometer.
Processor and OS
In term of performance, the PlayBook has been equipped with a speedy processor of 1 GHz Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 (Cortex-A9 dual-core). To gain a stable performance of this tablet, the 1 GB of RAM is added. The operating system of this tablet is the Blackberry Tablet OS especially made for the PC tablet based on the QNX Neutrino.
Multimedia
For the entertainment needs, the tablet has been packed with several multimedia playback capabilities. For example, the audio player supports for MP3, AAC and WMA formats. While the video player is capable of playing file formats like H.264, 1080p HD video, MPEG, DivX and WMV. This portable device also features 5 megapixels rear-camera and 3 megapixels front-facing camera for video calls. Amazingly, both cameras support for HD video recording of 1080p.
Storage
To store the multimedia files (video, music, and picture) this tablet has been added with an internal storage of 16, 32 or 64 GB flash memory.
Connectivity
For wireless connection, the PlayBook supports for Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n). For local connection or to connect to other devices, it has been equipped with Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, micro USB and micro HDMI.
Conclusion
Based on review above, the PlayBook can be considered as the slim, portable and smart tablet. Unfortunately, the tablet gain criticism on its first launch such as the lack of push email feature, the limited applications and ironically for some users this tablet is way too small with its 7-inch screen. [IS]
