Blackberry Playbook
I received a Blackberry Playbook last week, and well, I’m not sure whether to blame RIM, AT&T or both. As many have already figured out, the Blackberry Bridge application will not install on AT&T Blackberry’s. Before you email me, yes, I’m fully aware that there is a standalone install that allows you to circumvent the block but nonetheless, Blackberry Bridge is blocked in AppWorld.
Strangely, it’s also the only carrier listed in the unsupported section. Really?
OK, back to the Playbook. From a size perspective, it’s slightly larger than the Samsung Galaxy Tab (that’s the Tab on the bottom, and the Playbook on the top). I like the form factor. The Xoom/iPad size (for those of us who carry around a laptop) is really too big for me. The larger screen size is nice, but the smaller form factor slides in my travel bag better and is easier to carry around and use.
From an app perspective, a little underwhelming. A lot of the apps that I have grown to love (including all my social media apps) just don’t exist for the Playbook. I’m sure with time the apps will improve, but for now, very limiting. Without it being connected to my Blackberry, it’s nothing more than a dumb terminal/kiosk with an internet connection. You’ve probably seen the articles. Without a Blackberry, there is no email, calendar, contacts, or any other “stuff” on the device. You must be “bridged” to the device to see the apps. While I can understand their reasoning for implementing this, why didn’t they take a lesson from Android and make separate email clients? One for corporate sync, the other for all your personal email? Or, just make the Exchange link unavailable unless connected? Why restrict it completely? And oh, by the way, internet mail or web mail is not a mail CLIENT. Please don’t say it has an email client when it doesn’t. It can do email, yes, but who really wants to use it for web mail?
I’ve only been able to successfully connect to the Playbook once. When I walked away from it and came back, it has a “Bridge Locked” error, and wouldn’t allow me to do anything at all on the device. I had to turn it off and back on, and once connected, all I got was “Bridge…Connecting”. Nothing…no connection…so, until they get that fixed, I can’t comment on 5 minutes of use while connected to my Blackberry.
So, in an attempt to get it to work, I deleted Bluetooth pairs, rebooted, hard reset, pulled batteries, deleted Bluetooth pairs again, paired Bluetooth first then tried to bridge, etc. All I get was a screen that said “An error (connection denied) occurred…”. When I tried to manually configure, I made it all the way to the end of the pairing exercise only to have the Playbook tell me Bridge was not installed. All in all, about an hour trying to get these two devices to talk to each other, only to see error screens. This was even after being prompted to upgrade to a latter release on the Playbook. So, after about a week, I’ve only had it working for about 5 minutes. The rest of the time I’ve been browsing the internet and looking for apps to install. Sigh…I’ve been led to believe it’s a Blackberry OS issue. Others that are testing this thing have not upgraded their Blackberry’s to the latest OS. Again…SIGH…
I’m not sure I get it. I’ll have to agree with others that have blogged about this device. It’s unfinished. I would not say it’s unusable, unless you’re looking for a 7 inch screen on WiFi that will allow you to browse the internet. Since I’m not in the market for something like that, I’m out. It needs serious work.
For now, I’ll stick with my iPad. There just aren’t enough good apps yet in the Market Place for the Xoom. With time, I’m sure it will get there too.