Blackberry playbook tablet

[CAP1]

Hate to say it but I hate my Kindle Fire.

If all you want is books, movies, and some apps to kill time with then its great and fairly cheap. Otherwise it lacks...

The app market is fairly limited on it. There are no aviation apps for it and that was the main reason I wanted a tablet but this is what daddy bought so Im stuck with it. 

 my mom does her internet thing with it. it connects fast for her, on every website she hits....except her banking. but then again, i've been on that site, and it's slow as molasses in jan. on the laptop she uses at my house.

 

[CptTrips]

Should that come to fruition..... It would be a huge boon to open source which is already pretty rampant. Most folks want freedom to use their equipment as they see fit.

I understand why you feel that way.  But there is definitely a drive toward "appliancification" that is being rewarded by the marketplace.  So while you and I cut our teeth in the old PC days of swapping cards and twiddling config files; that is a dying model.

I'm sure the American Cowboy couldn't understand how all those people could stand to live in towns and fence off all the land.  That didn't keep it from happening.

I think the popularity of the iPhone and iPad has proven that people are perfectly willing to sacrifice some amount of freedom (most of whom weren't qualified to take advantage of it anyway) in order to gain dependability and simplicity.  It should JUST WORK when they turn it on,everytime, like their flatscreen TV or their stereo.  And they have no desire to understand how its working.  And they don't want to have to worry everytime they install something, that the whole  thing will come crashing down.  

With the vast swaths of society (of varying technical skill levels from grandma's to grad students) that are needing devices, the hands-on, open up that OS reference manual, tech-enthusiast model is just not scaleable.

IMHO,
Wab

[Seanaldinho]

my mom does her internet thing with it. it connects fast for her, on every website she hits....except her banking. but then again, i've been on that site, and it's slow as molasses in jan. on the laptop she uses at my house.

 

I do to when Im at home. The rest of the time I have my phone which I have unlimited data on. Most of the time I am on one of the two laptops we have in my house so honestly it serves no purpose for me other then I got a couple of books (Antigone, Julius Caesar) i needed for school for free.

[CAP1]

I do to when Im at home. The rest of the time I have my phone which I have unlimited data on. Most of the time I am on one of the two laptops we have in my house so honestly it serves no purpose for me other then I got a couple of books (Antigone, Julius Caesar) i needed for school for free.

 my biggest reason for having one myself, will be here at the shop....to use for my information system, when i'm diagnosing. a laptop is too bulky to take out to the car. i've tried that already. coming up here to this machine to click links to the next step, and then printing, go out in the bay, repeat/rinse.....frustrating. tablet is the perfect answer.

[eagl]

I think the popularity of the iPhone and iPad has proven that people are perfectly willing to sacrifice some amount of freedom (most of whom weren't qualified to take advantage of it anyway) in order to gain dependability and simplicity.  It should JUST WORK when they turn it on,everytime, like their flatscreen TV or their stereo.  And they have no desire to understand how its working.  And they don't want to have to worry everytime they install something, that the whole  thing will come crashing down.  

That's about half of the answer.  25% of the rest of the answer is that many of my friends and my wife's friends have iphones and/or ipads, and my wife is interested in interacting with those people rather than playing with a phone/tablet.  The iphone and ipad is one more gateway to our social circle, nothing more.  Which leads to the final 25%.  My wife HATES fiddling with computers and gadgets.  She wants it to work without any fiddling, and she wants it to do what she wants it to do without hearing excuses.  On my side, I provide all of my wife's tech support and I don't have time to waste fiddling around with a phone or tablet.  In my mind it's perfect if we buy it, set it up, and then never do anything other than actually USE the thing.

The iphone and ipad does these things for us.  I figure it out, set it up, set it up for my wife and show her how to use, add, or delete various features, and that's it.  No worrying about whether google is going to "accidentally" share our underwear size with Russian hackers, no waiting for OS updates, and surprisingly few gripes about how it doesn't work like we think it *should* work.  That's money in the bank as far as I'm concerned, and it made the small price premium totally worth it.

As for data plans, we have sprint and don't usually need to tether so unlimited data is simply there as long as we don't need/want to tether.  And if we ever did find ourselves needing to tether, sprint has much better devices designed specifically to feed wireless data to a computer anyhow so we'd probably go with a dedicated wireless data plan for the computer instead of tethering.

If I was single and had the time to play with a phone or tablet, yea I'd probably have ANYTHING other than an iphone/ipad.  But I don't have the time or desire to play with gadgets anymore, and after doing the research I found that the iphone/ipad would not only do exactly what we needed them to do, my wife could use them to keep in touch with her friends a bit easier because they're all using the same apps on nearly identical devices.  That's worth far more than a hundred bucks off the price and the "freedom" to waste even more time playing with my phone.

As for privacy, apple doesn't really need much "real" info on you.  You can easily set up a shades account with bogus info and as long as you stick with free apps, there is never any reason to give apple any real identification or personal information.  Yea if you have an iphone the cellphone service provider needs a ton of info, but most of that is due to govt regs and you'll get that with almost any phone contract with any provider.  Buy a used unlocked iphone and the carrier and apple get very little info on you.  After that it's just practicing safe computing if privacy is important, and that's no different than any other electronic device nowadays regardless of brand.

I didn't give up anything by going with Apple...  I traded dollars for featurs and convenience, like any other consumer transaction.  I'm pretty happy with the results.  I can compare with my brother and sister who went with various other android devices, and I come out the winner by a long shot.  My sister is on her 5th phone because her previous ones kept dying, and my brother went through 3 smartphones before he ran out of money to keep replacing them.  Somehow I just can't feel any regret about not doing things the same way they did.

[Seanaldinho]

my biggest reason for having one myself, will be here at the shop....to use for my information system, when i'm diagnosing. a laptop is too bulky to take out to the car. i've tried that already. coming up here to this machine to click links to the next step, and then printing, go out in the bay, repeat/rinse.....frustrating. tablet is the perfect answer.

Yeah and its perfect for that but unfortunately the Fire is very "specialized" if thats the world for it. First and foremost its an e-reader. Then its a music/movie platform. Finally apps and games come. So if thats what you will use it for then no doubt its perfect. I recommend getting a Gumdrop case for it, its the only "rugged" case I've seen for it. The rest are like little fold up things that provide no real protection for it.

So unfortunately it aint the one for me but Im making do with it.

[CptTrips]

My wife HATES fiddling with computers and gadgets.  She wants it to work without any fiddling, and she wants it to do what she wants it to do without hearing excuses.  On my side, I provide all of my wife's tech support and I don't have time to waste fiddling around with a phone or tablet.  In my mind it's perfect if we buy it, set it up, and then never do anything other than actually USE the thing.

And don't think that corporate IT departments aren't starting to look at it that way too.  For many employees, an ipad/iphone provides all the computing power they need and are MUCH easier to maintain and support.  The iPad has been making suprising beachheads in the corporate world.  Something I never thought I'd see.

MS is basically going to completely copy Apple's locked-down/appstore approach for all those reasons.  They are going one better (which I bet Apple copies in return)  they are going to make it possible to setup an internal company app store where users can download and install any of the approved company apps they want all by themselves.  Whenever they want.  At that point MS will start to be able to compete against Apple again as IT will prefer MS over Apple if they are at least in the same ball park.

In 3 years, mobile computing is going to look like 60% Apple, 25% MS, 15% Android remnants and asundry other straglers. (IMHO.  Just my guess.  Don't bet your 401k on it! )

Wab

[Gman]

Nobody talks about the Ipod any more now that the Ipad's are out, but I found an 8 gig Ipod touch for 150$ nib, and it does nearly everything I would do with an Ipad, but for about 1/4 the price, plus it fits in my pocket.  Sure it is a little on the small side for reading, but I've got a good 250 books in mine, and maybe 100 songs, plus a couple of movies as well.  If you use it mainly in the home, or spots where you can get a wireless internet connection, it isn't a bad option due to price, size, and the power and capability it has for such a tiny item.  Even the camera's aren't too bad on it.   I just think that I'd rather have this little Ipod that I can run/work out with, and have it with me at all times due to the size, so that whenever unexpected boredom arrives (wife's shopping, going to wife's friends house, wife's outings that you get dragged too etc) you'll have it, where as you need a bag or something for the Ipad.  In fact, the Ipad/Laptop combination works better for me than having just an Ipad.  A good cheap 17" Laptop AND an Ipod cost the same as just an Ipad by itself, and I have way more capability to boot. 

I'll be forced to get an Ipad3 due to the reasons Eagl was talking about(wife), but I won't be using it myself much.

I've checked out the Berry's in the store, and they look pretty good I have to admit, and agree with the OP.  I've been a long time BlackBerry user, in fact I still have the original BlackBerry that had a monochrome screen, I was the first kid on the block with one, and after going through about a dozen of them over time, the original one still is kicking and STILL has the best keyboard out of any of the new ones that came later.  Brand loyalty alone almost got me to get the Berry Tablet, but the Ipod was cheaper and did everything I wanted it to do as I said, and I picked up a cheap Laptop with the price difference.

The nice thing is there is a TON of options out there to fit just about anybody's wants or needs.  Great times.

[Tigger29]

Nobody talks about the Ipod any more now that the Ipad's are out,

Nobody talks about the iPod anymore because it's pretty much in the same "class" as the iPhone.  The iPod is pretty much the same thing as the iPhone, minus the phone stuff.

Don't get me wrong I don't have anything specific against Apple products.. my problem is with the general public when they simply don't want to think about things.  There is very little in this world that I'm happy with just being able to use without having to learn about it.

It would be different if Android was difficult to use or if it was problematic but from what I've seen this is far from the case.  Yes iPads might be a little easier to use than an Android tablet but I just don't see it being a big enough difference to justify these kinds of discussions.  Using the Kia vs. BMW comparison.. well both cars do the job.  Both are (relatively) safe.  Yes the BMW may do slightly better in the crash tests but I don't feel that it's enough to justify the price.  Also in my opinion it's a moot point anyway as the car's safety isn't what you should be concerned about - rather the behavior of the other drivers on the road!

People feel safer with iProducts because they are less susceptible to malware and viruses but you know what?  I don't recall EVER reading anything about an Android virus being rampant among these devices.  Also if you stick with the Android Market you're pretty safe.  There's even an option you can check that won't let you install apps from anywhere else but I have to say that it sure is nice to at least have that option!

[Shuffler]

... for Android just install lookout and you should be good.

The only keystroke reading software on the iPhones were installed by.... Apple. It has access to all your private info including passwords, text, emails, phone calls..... etc.

[CptTrips]

People feel safer with iProducts because they are less susceptible to malware and viruses but you know what?  I don't recall EVER reading anything about an Android virus being rampant among these devices. 

Oh they've had tons of problems....

http://gizmodo.com/5882776/scammers-use-impostor-apps-to-flood-the-android-marketplace-with-malware

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/03/android-malware/

http://gigaom.com/2012/02/02/android-market-employs-a-bouncer-to-keep-malware-out/

To their credit they are finally scambling to do something about it.  But jeez.  Did it really come as a suprise?  They really couldn't have predicted this? 

I predict they'll try several rounds of ineffective controls and they'll have to tighted down more each time.  They'll eventually come around to the same solution Apple did, and the same solution MS is going to do for Metro apps.

Locked-down, digitally-signed, officially-certified, app store products that have to go through a reasonably rigorous approval process. 

IMHO,
Wab

[Sonicblu]

I typing on I pad. Wife bought it for fathers day when they first came out. It is a great product I really enjoy it.

I am not a apple true believe never have been, but do like the iPad. Brother has the samsung galaxy and one other one and says iPad is the better option.

[CAP1]

Yeah and its perfect for that but unfortunately the Fire is very "specialized" if thats the world for it. First and foremost its an e-reader. Then its a music/movie platform. Finally apps and games come. So if thats what you will use it for then no doubt its perfect. I recommend getting a Gumdrop case for it, its the only "rugged" case I've seen for it. The rest are like little fold up things that provide no real protection for it.

So unfortunately it aint the one for me but Im making do with it.

 well, to be honest, i had started a thread asking advice on them here before. the fire was recommenede, and i liked it a lot. that's why i got one for mom.
 the problem with them though, is as you've mentioned. i want more than that. what the kindle is is perfect for her. i need/want expandibility, and other abilities that the fire doesn't have. that's why i'll probably be getting one of the toshibas or samsungs for me.

[Curval]

Just bought the blackberry playbook tablet... which is what i am typing on now... i must say that i really believe that is much better than the ipad... hands down.

Anyone else happen to have the blackberry playbook?

I am about to get one.

I want it to be a bridge between my phone and my laptop, an easy way to see and edit email attachments, for example, without having to boot up the laptop.  I understand it has great linking software to the phone and is Citrix capable.  I plan to use it while travelling mostly.

WHile in Best Buy last week looking at them a guy walked past me and warned me NOT to buy one...he said to get an ipad.  After questioning why he said that it all boiled down to "It doesn't have enough aps".  I lol'd and said I need it to link to my work phone seamlessly, synch contacts etc. and frankly the less aps the better because it keeps the kids away from it.  Even Mr. Negative agreed that it would be good for what I wanted to use it for.,

[DREDIOCK]

Just bought the blackberry playbook tablet... which is what i am typing on now... i must say that i really believe that is much better than the ipad... hands down.

Anyone else happen to have the blackberry playbook?

Can you print directly from it?
I need something that will run windows type software that I can print directly from either wirelessly or via USB that I dont need to have a 3rd internet connection contract for