I have had one for a couple of hours (64Gb), so I am now an expert, and why wouldn’t I add my voice to the chorus of reviews of the PlayBook. In truth sometimes first impressions are the most acute, so I am only partly ranting. I should also point out that I carry an iPhone through choice having had a Blackberry (I unfortunately let go of it when I was practicing throwing it off a bridge – getting ready for the big day). I also have access to an iPad for work and I have a Samsung NC10 netbook.
Rant 1: No 3G is a bad omission. They should have just waited until they are ready. No ifs and buts for me, without 3G it’s already useless for my evil tablet purposes. I have a 3G dongle for my Samsung, iPhone and iPad both have it out of the box.
Rant 2: You cannot charge it with the case closed. The “free” case, anyway. A small thing which I know will cause me to buy another case. Or never remember to plug it in to charge before I go to bed.
Rant 3: The touch sensitive surround seems weird, I think it’ll take some getting used to the fact that the border is part of the device. If it’s that clever (and necessary for the operation of the device) why don’t they let me use all of it to see things?
Rant 4: I needed a Blackberry ID to get it working at all, I already have 4 messages from them to the email address I used to create one. Given I am just connecting it to my LAN, why did I need to have a blackberry ID? Please tell me it’s just setup that causes the spam.
Rant 5: It really is too small. Aspect ratios aside, the viewable area is about half the iPad. I am part way to wearing specs full time and I can get away with it on the iPad, not on the PlayBook.
Rant 6: The screen seems to be be more sensitive than the iPad to mistaking a tap for a slide, and less sensitive to tap position – it gets it wrong more often than the iPad, but that may just be the screen size (everything’s smaller and harder to tap).
Rant 7: I’m finding the basic navigation paradigm a little less intuitive than I did the iPad. The real test comes later when Jack (3 1/2) gets his hands on it. And I am willing to accept that 3 years of iPhone/iPad indoctrination may well be showing.
On the plus side I like the browser and the multi-tasking O/S. I just think it’s a bit small…
More to come – probably.
