Review: BlackBerry Bold 9900 and Playbook tablet

            

BLACKBERRY PLAYBOOK: It's probably unfair to compare it the Apple's superior iPad device.


REVIEW: The new BlackBerry Bold 9900 is solid proof that not all smartphones are equal.

That's a bad thing for developer Research In Motion.

Instead of enthralling me, my few weeks with the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and BlackBerry Playbook reminded me how good other smartphone platforms are, such as the Apple iPhone, Google Android and Microsoft Windows Phone 7.5 Mango.

While the Bold 9900 is packed with the latest and greatest Research In Motion software, the basic design concept of the Bold 9900 is fundamentally flawed, compared with the competition.

The BlackBerry, once a favourite of company executives, was an innovative business solution which included mobile email when most other cellphones could do little more than make and answer calls and send and receive text messages.

With the Bold 9900, Research In Motion has basically ignored the trend of large touchscreens introduced by Apple when it launched its first iPhone in 2007.

The Bold 9900 follows the same configuration as the original BlackBerry from 1999, although at less than 1cm thick, it is far sleeker. It has faster internal parts and software too, but it still resembles a pocket calculator.

The Bold 9900 does have a touchscreen, but at 480 pixels high and 640 pixels wide, it's far too small to run in the same race as the competition.

The same goes for the keyboard. Phones like Google's Android Milestone and LG's Windows Phone 7, with their slide-out keyboards, beat it hands down.

The handset was not configured correctly, which led to all sorts of hassles in getting it to recognise my Telecom SIM and accept my Xtra email password. It all meant I soon became disinterested.

For a $1099 phone, I expected much more.

The BlackBerry Playbook, however, was a different story, although I know I didn't use it to its potential.

The Playbook is Research In Motion's foray into the tablet computer market. It looks, feels and works like an iPad, although it's probably unfair to compare it with Apple's superior device.

The main thing I use any portable device for is web browsing, and I found the Playbook's web browser was quick and easy to use over a home wi-fi connection. If I had to rank it, I'd say it would probably sit below the iPad and the Samsung's Android Galaxy tablet, but above just about every other Android tablet I have used.

But that will probably change when big manufacturers like Hewlett Packard and Asus release their Windows 8 tablets in the second half of the year.

In the meantime, the Playbook is a good option for some basic consumption-based mobile computing.

What makes or breaks a mobile computing device is whether software developers have taken it into their fold and are writing specialist applications for it.

It's preferable if the app store is heaving with good apps, as in the case of Apple's, Google's and Microsoft's eco-systems, but sadly in the Playbook's case there are minimal apps.

One good one, which I couldn't test because of configuration problems, links the Bold 9900 with the Playbook and allows you to view your emails on it, but disables the function when you move the phone away.

The high-definition seven-inch liquid-crystal display images at 1024 by 600 resolution. It has 1GHz dual-core processor with one gigabyte of ram, and a built-in memory of either 32GB or 64GB.

There is a three-megapixel camera facing forward and a five-megapixel one facing rear. It also has Micro USB and Micro HDMI ports, and Bluetooth connectivity.

The 32GB PlayBook retails for $949 and the 64GB model for $1099.

From:http://www.stuff.co.nz