The Blackberry Playbook: A Tablet for Business and Consumers

By Saif Qureshi, Online Editor

Research in Motion (RIM) will be launching a new tablet in the upcoming year to compete with existing tablets such as the Apple iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tab. It is expected to launch in the US by early 2011.

Surprisingly, it looks quite good even compared to the existing products out there. It features a 7” screen with increased pixels meaning that display will be clearer and more detailed. It will be running Blackberry Tablet OS and not the “Blackberry 6” OS featured on its new Torch smartphone.

Additionally, it will feature multitasking, an onscreen keyboard, and a music player that looks similar to the iPod app. The hardware specifications include a Dual-core 1GHz processor and 1GB RAM. What this means for consumers is that it has enough power to multitask, output 1080 video and run intensive apps. The Playbook also contains two cameras; the front camera for videoconferencing is 3 MP while the back camera is 5 MP.

The best part of course is that you will be able to integrate the Playbook with an existing Blackberry smartphone. That means that you will be able to view the same emails, calendars or BBM without even syncing the two devices. This means it will also keep its business users happy. Regardless, its hard to tell how the Playbook will fare with competition, as by the time it is launched, there will be even more tablets competing for your cash.