Research In Motion (RIM) announced Tuesday that its long-discussed PlayBook tablet will begin to ship on April 19, 2011, at prices starting at $499.
[ad#Google Adsense 300×250 in story]The BlackBerry PlayBook with Wi-Fi comes in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB varieties, priced at $499, $599, and $699 respectively – the same price as Apple’s similarly-equipped iPad 2.
Customers interested in the PlayBook can go to Best Buy, Best Buy Mobile or (in Canada) Future Shop stores or order them online beginning after 8 AM Eastern Time on Tuesday.
Billed by RIM as “the world’s first professional-grade tablet,” the BlackBerry PlayBook weighs 0.9 pounds and measures 5.1 x 7.6 x 0.4 inches. That’s lighter than an iPad but only about half its length. The device as a 1024 x 600-pixel resolution capacitive LCD touch screen, and is powered by a 1GHz dual processor.
The PlayBook sports 1080p HDMI output and dual cameras (3 megapixel in the front, 5 megapixel in the rear), stereo speakers and stereo mics, 802.11n Wi-Fi capability, and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR support.
Where RIM hopes to significantly differentiate its device from the iPad is support for Adobe Flash Player (version 10.1) and a user experience based around BlackBerry Tablet OS.
It’s a positive step for RIM, which announced the PlayBook in September but is yet to actually ship the product.
Are my eyes deceiving me? A shipping date and price for the PlayBook?
Colour me speechless.
Still, great that they managed to match Apple’s price point.
Now their promises will just have to hold up against the reality that will be the PlayBook after April 19th.
And look, the queues have already started outside RIM hq….. http://cdn2.loopinsight.com/wp-content/uploads/rim_ipad.jpg
… oh wait.
Playbook with half the screen area of iPad matches the iPad in price.
Big Buzz
DOA
The screen bezel on this thing is enormous
I am not really sure it is essential for a device like this to have 2 cameras, 1 in the front and 1 in the rear. Maybe I am mistaken…