Usability, Data/Messaging


Usability

The PlayBook runs RIM'south brand-new BlackBerry Tablet Os, which is based on the QNX Os that it purchased last year. Swell-eyed users will observe similarities to a number of other mobile operating systems - peculiarly webOS.

The application tray offers upwards crisp icons floating above the wallpaper much like iOS. The tray scrolls smoothly and quickly and has a kinetic bouncing result when the end of the list is reached. Users can categorize their applications into Favorites, Media, and Games tabs within the app tray, besides equally rearrange their placement. Unfortunately, there was not a mode to create custom categories as far as we could tell.

The upper right corner of the main screen is domicile to data such equally battery status and Wi-Fi connections, equally well as toggles for orientation lock and Bluetooth. At that place is as well a cog icon that is used to admission the settings carte du jour. The left corner is home to the notifications organization for when the PlayBook is connected to a BlackBerry smartphone. Front and center on the tiptop bar is the current appointment and time.

Ane of the highlight features of the new BlackBerry Tablet Bone is the way information technology handles multi-tasking. The PlayBook is capable of running more 1 awarding at a time, in fact, it can run many applications at one time. When an app is opened, it shoots to total screen when it is in focus. Users can swipe upwards from the lesser bezel of the screen and the app will shrink back to the desktop, just like on webOS. Then, more than apps tin can be opened while the first apps remain open up and active. Users tin easily switch betwixt open applications by swiping in from the left or right side of the screen, over again much like the way application switching works with webOS. Once an app has been shrunk back to the desktop, it can be closed by swiping it upwardly towards the top of the screen. Similarities to other systems aside, multitasking works very well and the gesture based controls are very like shooting fish in a barrel to learn.

Role of the reason multitasking works so well is considering the UI on the PlayBook is very responsive and snappy. RIM was smart about equipping the PlayBook with a dual-core 1GHz processor and a total 1GB of RAM, and the effect of having such powerful hardware is quite obvious. Apps open up speedily and lists and menus are very responsive. All of that adds up to an like shooting fish in a barrel-to-employ tablet that does what is expected most of the fourth dimension.

The PlayBook provides an on-screen keyboard that can be used in both portrait and landscape orientations. Information technology has multitouch capabilities and is quite responsive. Typing is fast, although it can be rather cramped for touch-typists in landscape orientation. The portrait keyboard is dandy for typing with 2 thumbs, about like typing on a giant smartphone. The downside of the keyboard is that RIM offers no auto-correct features whatsoever, and that can turn out to be maddening at times. Any on-screen keyboard worth its salt is backed upward by a great auto-right/prediction system, and not having one is a existent detriment. In that location were numerous times where we were typing away furiously just to find out that our text was littered with typos.

There are many footling touches and attention to item scattered throughout the Bone that shows that RIM's designers have actually put an effort into polishing the user experience. The style the icons compress back into the background when switching tabs in the app launcher and the generous use of transparencies and gradients are perfect examples of this. There are some inconsistencies, but for the most part, the underlying OS is quite solid. The fact that all of the functions piece of work in any orientation, forwards, sideways, or upside-downwardly is a prissy affect that lets the user but become on with doing a chore instead of trying to figure out if they are holding the device properly.


Information

The PlayBook version that is bachelor at present is a Wi-Fi-only model, so there is no cellular radio within the device. The PlayBook support 802.11a/b/yard/n Wi-Fi, but we plant information technology to be very flaky at times (in fact, information technology would not work with our wireless Northward router at all, we had to switch dorsum to an old G router to become the PlayBook to connect). When information technology did hold a connectedness, the speeds were acceptable and it appeared that we were able to take advantage of most of the bandwidth that was available to us.

The PlayBook does support Bluetooth, which is how the BlackBerry Span application connects to a BlackBerry smartphone for features like e-mail and calendaring. This besides allows yous to tether the smartphone's cyberspace connection to the PlayBook, then that is an option to get connectivity on the get. We also capeesh that the PlayBook's storage tin can exist accessed as a network bulldoze over the Wi-Fi connection, even when the screen has been blanked. This makes it user-friendly to grab a random photo or something off of the tablet when it is not at your side.


Messaging

Despite all of the swell qualities of the PlayBook, the device has some serious Achilles heels, and messaging is ane. Out of the box, the PlayBook has no course of messaging any. At that place is no electronic mail client, no IM client, no video conversation client, and certainly no SMS customer. RIM's famed BlackBerry Messenger platform is nowhere to be seen. There are pre-loaded shortcuts to webmail versions of pop electronic mail providers such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, and AOL Mail, but those are a poor substitute for a native electronic mail customer. Not having any class of communication app available out of the box is a huge detriment and quite frustrating in our opinion. The webmail options have their own limitations thanks in no small part to the browser, which we will see later.

As mentioned before, for now the Playbook depends on the Bluetooth bridge that establishes a connection with a BlackBerry smartphone to inherit the phone's access to email accounts and messaging apps. And while this may exist convenient to BlackBerry users, it limits the appeal of the Playbook as a alone tablet device.