Blackberry Playbook Tablet £169 at Currys/PCWorld

hollypinder

Does anyone have a screen shot of the offer with the free case/stand thingy as i bought one this morning but then saw the offer so am going to go in store on boxing day but now the offer has been taken off their website so need to get a screenshot to show them?

Thanks

MiraculousM

rmwebs wrote: »

(Disclaimer: I'm an application developer and have worked on the iPad, Android tablets and the BB Playbook)

A word of warning. If you plan on purchasing a Playbook, dont expect much. Because there are so few developers (which is DECREASING fast, NOT INCREASING) there are very few apps. If you buy one of these, its good for internet browsing - thats about it. In addition because of the financial trouble that Research in Motion are in, its highly likely based on recent events that the tablet will be discontinued within the next 2 months and not replaced with a newer model. Put simply, RIM are on the verge of going under. I'm not saying dont get one....I'm just advising people be prepared or be disappointed - do some research into it before hitting the buy button.

Personally I'd say go for an Android based tablet - you can get ones around the same specs (if not better) than the playbook for £100 - £150. Check out 'TheRegister.com' - they reviewed the budget android tablets recently and have some pretty decent recommendations.

The playbook wont go out of stock - they have millions of the things stockpiled simply because they cant shift them due to their lack of use.

Merry Xmas - hope everyone gets the bargains they want

What a pile of rubbish. There are no immediate plans (especially not 2 months away) to ditch the playbook.. in fact, they are currently in the process of developing an upgrade to the operating system.

RIM isnt in financial trouble. The only place that it is, is in america. Even here in the UK, they are still very popular not only amongst business's but also amongst teenagers.

Buying a "budget" android tablet for the same price as this would be terrible move because you wont get a much worse operating system.

MISSL_2

I might be being really dumb but did the offer finish for the £50 voucher! - I can see the playbook for £169, but no £50 voucher deal!

jbro

hollypinder wrote: »

Does anyone have a screen shot of the offer with the free case/stand thingy as i bought one this morning but then saw the offer so am going to go in store on boxing day but now the offer has been taken off their website so need to get a screenshot to show them?

Thanks

i've got one on my pc but am not likely to go online with that today - am just trying out the playbook to type this. will send it to you tomorrow. pm me with your email address.

rmwebs

MiraculousM wrote: »

What a pile of rubbish. There are no immediate plans (especially not 2 months away) to ditch the playbook.. in fact, they are currently in the process of developing an upgrade to the operating system.

RIM isnt in financial trouble. The only place that it is, is in america. Even here in the UK, they are still very popular not only amongst business's but also amongst teenagers.

Buying a "budget" android tablet for the same price as this would be terrible move because you wont get a much worse operating system.

No disrespect but if you think for one minute that Android is a bad OS then you've got zero credibility.

I've got no interest in debating. I was simply stating facts. Take a look at the very shot list of apps for the playbook, vs the tens of thousands for Android.

I'll back my stuff up with proof. If you want to debate this, PM me - as I stated, I'm simply warning people that they may be disappointed at the lack of apps and future support.

There's simple little things missing...like no native email app - these kinds of things will disappoint people.

http://s1.securityweek.com/failure-blackberry-playbook-means-cios-need-plan-apple-world
http://allthingsd.com/20110419/blackberry-playbook-fail-with-consumers-fail-with-enterprise/
http://www.quora.com/Why-does-Blackberry-Playbook-fail-in-sales
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/12/2011-tech-fails-oof/?pid=2779
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/financials/2011/09/16/poor-blackberry-playbook-sales-drag-on-rim-earnings-40093956/
http://forums.crackberry.com/blackberry-playbook-f222/playbook-has-poor-apps-618052/
http://tabtimes.com/news/ittech-tablets/2011/12/02/rim-forced-take-massive-hit-poor-playbook-sales
http://www.padgadget.com/2011/06/17/o2-uk-skips-blackberry-playbook-due-to-poor-experience/
http://www.gottabemobile.com/2011/09/29/the-blackberry-playbook-isnt-dead-but-its-certainly-dying/

prowla

In my case, I would tend to be wanting a web-based (or "cloud" in [STRIKE]naughties[/STRIKE] onezies parlance) email service, as I wouldn't like to be storing my mails or running into space issues on a tablet.

lengloi

Regarding the £50 voucher. This has now finished. The only one that applies is if you spend over £500 in store.

Eddington

Im very happy with mine, i have an ipad and did have a hp touchpad and this is so much better that the touchpad and i think better than the ipad

Now some will say ..... but the apps but the apps

They have enough, nothing major...... but it streams a treat and the screen is amazing

I give it a 7.5 out of 10

londondealer

does it have flash?

Lomcevak

Ok, first impressions.

The negative: Lets get this out of the way first - if you're after apps, then you almost certainly don't want the Playbook. There are few, many of the 'usuals' from iPad or Android are missing, and what ones there are appear quite expensive.

Neutral: No native email/contacts/calendar client. Well discussed, only a minor irritation if you're in the gmail ecosystem as everything is fine through the web interface, and lack of client is apparently being addressed soon (Feb?) so may cease to be an issue. Jury's out here, but not a killer issue for me so far. If you're on POP3/IMAP with no easy web access then would be more of a problem.

Also, being realistic you're also probably buying into a dying platform unless RIM picks up its game across the board. Would be a serious negative at older iPad-like pricing, but neutral at the new offer prices IMO.

The positives: browsing is excellent as is the general user interface, and iPlayer works perfectly without a stutter. It synchronizes very easily with my Mac (iPhoto/iTunes for photos, video and music), Facebook has its own app which is good, other social networking fine through the browser as is Gmail. I've paid a couple of quid for an app called "files & folders" which brings Dropbox support (and I think Google documents and some kind of email capability, although I haven't tried either yet) which looks to significantly expand the capability - with this Word to Go and Sheet to Go look quite powerful for editing your Dropboxed Microsoft Office docs on the go. Battery life is good, and i've had no issues with anything crashing yet (but early days of course)


So there's really no single answer here. At one extreme, it's a waste of money for someone looking for the Apple or Android app stores, as they aren't there. At the other, for someone looking to browse the web, stream iPlayer, edit/review Office docs and do web-based email it's near flawless and an the extra £230 needed for an iPad 2 16Gb buys you very little at all. In reality, most of us sit somewhere in between and its a case of balancing the much lower price against the lack of an application ecosystem and the other more minor niggles. YMMV, as they say.