Not only smartphones and mobile phones return to the collective memory with our column ‘The Forgotten Phone’ and ‘The Forgotten Smartphone’. We now bring in a tablet. Do you remember the BlackBerry PlayBook?
BlackBerry PlayBook
BlackBerry's parent company, Research in Motion, released its own tablet in 14 years ago, in 2011; the BlackBerry PlayBook. It was an unusual tablet, focusing on the business user. This tablet featured a 7.0-inch touchscreen with fairly hefty screen bezels and a partially rubberised body. The TFT screen showed a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels.
It was the first device running BlackBerry's Tablet OS, which was based on the QNX Neutrino platform. Downloading applications could be done through BlackBerry App World; so not through the Google Play Store. The range was limited and the apps that were available were often paid. However, you got the most out of the tablet if, as a user, you also owned a BlackBerry smartphone. This added additional functionality: BlackBerry Bridge. This made it possible to synchronise your calendar, mail and BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) with your BlackBerry smartphone via Bluetooth. A handy feature was that you could also quickly undo this with the push of a button, when you wanted to show the tablet to someone else, for example. The BlackBerry PlayBook had WiFi, but could also use your smartphone's internet connection via a Bluetooth connection.
Looking at the further specifications of BlackBerry's tablet, we saw the presence of a TI OMAP 4430 dual-core processor. This was assisted by 1GB of working memory. BlackBerry marketed the device with 16, 32 and 64GB of memory. You could not expand this. There was also a 3 megapixel front camera and a 5 megapixel rear camera, assisted by an LED flash. The battery capacity came out to 5300 mAh. The price of the BlackBerry PlayBook started at around 450-500 euros. Later, the price was reduced as sales numbers were disappointing.
BlackBerry PlayBook summarised in 3 points:
- 7.0-inch TFT display
- BlackBerry App World
- Stereo speakers
