Playbook vs. iPad

The newest contestant in the battle to become the best tablet is the BlackBerry Playbook. At the moment this market is dominated by the iPad which is made by Apple but will this by iPad killer?? Read and find out!

The Playbook will have a 7 inch (1024 x 600) LCD multi-touchscreen. While it is smaller compared to the iPad's 9.7 inch (1024 x 768) screen the Playbook has a higher pixel density meaning pictures and videos will actually look better on the Playbook than the iPad. The larger screen size on the iPad obviously makes it the heavier than the Playbook which is only 0.9 pounds compared to the iPad which is about 1.5 pounds. The operating system on the Playbook is called the BlackBerry Tablet OS (very creative right?). It looks very nice and smooth, unlike the BlackBerry OS for their smartphones, and I like it a lot except they copied one of its most important features from a deferent OS. Multitasking. The Playbooks version of multitasking is virtually identical the WebOS "card" system. Myself being a WebOS user, I'm a little bit mad as the "card" system is known as the absolute best way to multitask and is one of the major selling points for the Palm Pre and Pixi which run WebOS.

Palm Pre

BlackBerry Playbook

 The Playbook and the iPad both have 1 GHz processers but the Playbook has a monstrous 1 GB of RAM compared to the iPads puny 256 MB. For all you non-techies out there, what does his mean? Well the more RAM you have the more things you can having running at once. I guess that since the iPad can't multitask right now, it isn’t that big of a deal but supposedly in November it will be able to multitask. The Playbook of course can already multitask and having 1 GB of RAM will enhance the experience greatly.

The Playbook will have the usual stuff like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 but it won't have GPS. Come-on Blackberry….you call this the first "professional tablet" but no GPS? How are the "professional" business men supposed to find their way around the cities they go to for their "professional" meetings?? I guess they could just use their BlackBerry smart phones…While I am talking about BB phones I'll mention one really cool feature that BlackBerry has added to its devices. If you edit something on the Playbook, for example a contact's detail, it will automatically be synchronized to your BlackBerry smartphone.

The biggest feature that the Playbook has that the iPad doesn’t is its cameras. Yes I meant to make that plural. The Playbook not only has a rear facing 5 megapixel camera that is capable of taking 1080p HD video (!!) but it also has a 3 megapixel front facing camera! This camera can be used for a variety of things such as taking pictures of yourself and others easier since you can check the screen to make sure everyone is in it but more importantly it can be used for video conferencing. This is one feature that really pushes the "professional" feature of this tablet. With most flights now offering in-flight Wi-Fi, business people can now for instance, chat with a potential client while in the air saving precious time in their busy lifestyle.

So all in all which is better? Personally I like the iPad purely because of its enormous app store and its huge screen. If you are willing to have a smaller screen and don’t care too much about the apps then the Playbook is definitely the best option available. Leave any questions and comments below!

Courtesy of Engadget.com