Before I start, I want to point out that I am a heavy iPad 3G and Blackberry Bold user. You have a fan of both RIM and Apple on your hands.
Research in Motion is at CES to do one thing: show off the yet to be released Playbook. The Playbook is RIM’s response to the iPad and their assault on the Pandora’s box of tablets. The Playbook is for “business people who mean business.” We were lucky enough to play with a couple on the showroom floor.
On first glance, it’s immediately obvious the Playbook is smaller than the iPad, but still just as sleek and inviting. The exhibitors prided the Playbook on its multi multiple applications at a time: console-like games, to HD movies, and web browsing. The transitions shown were visually seamless. When asked how many programs could run on its one-gigahertz dual core processor, they gave indirect answers.
While it was understandably not the finished product, we did expect to see a near complete product. When we would begin to load a page, the exhibitor would take the reigns of the touchscreen and go back to Avatar to keep us distracted from slow loading times. Once we loaded the Cosby Sweaters homepage and scrolled down, the Playbook had not rendered the page outside of the display. This seemed to be a constant fault. Again the consistent distraction of transitioning between game, movie, and web prevailed. They wanted us to keep our eyes busy.
Nearly every time I clicked on link, there would be a pause then the exhibitor would step in. He would zoom into the link then click and then we would wait.
I am still waiting.
