RIM are showing a new product, the Blackberry ‘Playbook’ at DevCon10 in San Francisco as I write. I’m adding specifications as they come in.
Specifications (updating) https://www.umpcportal.com/products/blackberry/playbook (now with official specifications)
Press Release is here.
First image via http://twitter.com/hardwarezone
Slashgear have some more images from the event here.
- 1Ghz CPU (Dual core, must be Cortex A9 – possibly Tegra2?)
- 7 inch Screen 1024×600, Multitouch Capacative
- Micro HDMI-out, Micro USB
- 1BG RAM
- 9.7 mm thin
- 16GB flash storage
More (official) specs now in the product page.
This is being pitched as a stable, secure platform with ‘uncompromised browsing.’ Flash 10.1 is included.
Stay tuned here or on the product page for updates.
Blackberryplaybook.com is redirecting to Blackberry America.
Initial thoughts:
It will be offered as a partner device for blackberry owners for a very cheap price, a ‘value-add’ upgrade. Web support is being promoted heavily with Flash and HTML5 support and a “high-fidelity web experience”. Could the browser be better than the iPad and Android devices? At 400gm with a Cortex A9 ARMV7 Core (Thx TheLukeTailor in comments), the battery life probably won’t beat the iPad. I estimate something similar to the Galaxy Tab – 4-6hrs online usage with good standby capability. Mobile usage will depend on the tethered phone. Storage is said to be 16GB which is a good starting point. No word on removable storage capability yet.
Application ecosystem needs to be analysed.
That’s it for this post. More soon so stay tuned for analysis.
This marks a lot of firsts for RIM. This will be their first ARMv7 device, first large screen device and first device to run a pre-emptable/multitasking OS.
On the speculation of processor I would guess they are not actual A9 cores. The press release doesn’t say A9 and the two ARM vendors RIM does business with are Marvell and Qualcomm, neither of whom make a true A9 based chip. Both have their own 1 GHz capable dual core ARMv7 chips and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to learn RIM has chosen to use a vendor they already know and work with.
Hopefully RIM commits to developing their OS and migrating it down to upcoming handsets since their core software is so lacking. BBM and Blackberry email are great applications but the glue holding it together is horrible.
I’m surprised RIM is playing up the software compatibility of POSIX since it has nothing to do with GUI applications and the only other POSIX-complaint mobile OSs are Meego and WebOS, tiny players in the scheme of things. Android explicitly forgoes it to reduce code size and iOS doesn’t allow any access to the underlying UNIX layer. It does mark a big win for UNIX though since all the smartphone markers are now using OSs built on UNIX concepts. Not bad for something 40 years old.
True on the ARM core. An ARM V7 variant rather than Cortex. Good point.
It still could be an A9 core but I’d bet it’s Marvell ARMANDA or Snapdragon.
I totally agree with the tendancy towards an independant design. Early reports were mentioning Marvel Armada. 500 or 600 series is highly likely.
Crackberry.com provided the following 15 minute video.
http://crackberry.com/full-live-blackberry-playbook-announcement-video
The QNX guy clearly mentions that it is shipping with 2 Cortex A9 cores.