Home News Tablets BlackBerry launches PlayBook to rival Apple’s iPad

BlackBerry launches PlayBook to rival Apple’s iPad

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blackberry playbook
blackberry playbook

BlackBerry is to go into the tablet computer market with what it hopes will be an iPad killer with its PlayBook.

RIM announced the new device at its developer’s conference last night. The tablet is aimed squarely at enterprises and companies and offers enterprise support and a development platform for IT departments as well as the more customary web browsing, multi-tasking and multi-media.

It sports a 7-inch WSVGA multi-touch capacitive LCD touchscreen with a 1024×600 resolution. Inside it boasts a 1GHz dual-core processor and  1GB of RAM. Also featured on the unit is a 3-megapixel camera on the front and and a 5-megapixel camera on the back. It also features 1080p HD video recording.

Its full HD capabilities support a wde variety of formats including H.264, MPEG, DivX and WMV. Audio-wide it supports MP3, AAC and WMA. There is HDMI video output, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR.

It also features microHDMI and microUSB connections and runs a webkit-based browser. Unlike the iPad it supports Adobe Flash Player 10.1. It also comes with Adobe Mobile AIR, Adobe Reader, POSIX, OpenGL and Java.

Surprisingly, BlackBerry will not put its BlackBerry OS6 on the tablet favouring an OS from its recent QNX acquisition.

While the device won’t be available until 2011, BlackBerry will offer both 3G and 4G versions of the tablet in the future. A UK version looks set to hit these shores around March.

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