Sep 26

Business-driving, Flash-loving, App-rocking

By Lacey Ackerman

At DevCon 2010, Research in Motion (RIM) had introduced the new 7" Blackberry tablet, the Playbook. Of course they need to keep up with the competitive market, but will the PlayBook be a success or fail? Frequently, the consumer usually chooses between these type of products based on two important factors: price and battery-life. Because the release of the new tablet occurred only yesterday, we are still unsure of these two decision-breaking elements. For now, we can compare the specs with other contenders, such as Apple's iPad:

Screen size

PlayBook: 7"; iPad: 9.7"

Resolution

PlayBook: 1024 x 600; iPad: 1024 x 768

Weight

PlayBook: .9 lbs; iPad: 1.5 lbs

Processor & RAM

PlayBook: 1GHz Cortex A9; iPad: 1GHz A4 (based on Cortex A8 processor)

The PlayBook looks to be in the lead on this one, for its processor is a dual-core job with a graphics processing unit, causing this tablet to be faster.

Memory

PlayBook: 1GB; iPad: 256MB

Storage

PlayBook: 16GB & 32GB; iPad: 16GB, 32GB & 64GB

Camera

PlayBook: 3 megapixel forward-facing & 5 megapixel rear-facing; iPad: no camera

So, on paper, it looks like Blackberry's PlayBook has better specs. However, the tablet will not be released until 2011, which gives Apple plenty of time to revisit their weaknesses. It's a constant battle. We'll just have to wait and see.