According to DigiTimes sources, BlackBerry are anticipating to ship around a million units of their eagerly anticipated tablet for the business market – the BlackBerry PlayBook.
With the tablet being released in March in the US and Q2 for the UK, BlackBerry expect their tablet device to do very well in the business market.
The bloggers over at BlogDNA have compiled a short-list comparison chart of competitors to the iPad from 2011 and what could possibly rival Apple in 2011.
With the iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tablet already hot sellers on the UK tablet market, 2011 will hold the release of two heavy weight competitors –BlackBerry PlayBook and Notion Ink Adam which are waiting for Q1 release in 2011.
-Via BlogsDNA
8. Amazon Kindle
There is obviously a lot of difference between what an iPad can do to what an Amazon Kindle. The purpose of the iPad was for it to also be compatible with iBook which is in essence the sole purpose of the Kindle – an eBook reader. So it is really what you want from the device, the Kindle is on its third generation in the UK and even has its own eBooks store.
Another big plus is if you just want an eBook reader, the Kindle is priced at £109 for a Wi-Fi only and £149 for 3G + Wi-Fi. With 4GB internal memory all ready for eBooks, the battery life will last you around one month and its e-ink screen means it not as harsh as an iPad to the naked eye.
So if you want an eBook reader, you may need to look no further than the Kindle.
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Well its official – 2010 is nearly over and what a year it has been for gadgets. With most of us looking forward to un-wrapping our tech and woolly socks on Christmas day, at SpiderGroup, we are looking forward to what 2011 has to hold for us.
2010 has been a successful year for manufactures Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and many more with 3D technology, smart phones, tablets and operating systems. We’ve seen the growth of 3D phenomenally grow but with one downside – the glasses.
We’ve blogged about what to anticipate for release in 2011 but again, the spot light is on certain manufactures more than others. With Samsung currently holding 90% of the 3D-TV market, could we see Sony make a comeback with 3D-TV’s and 3D gaming on their PS3? Will Android have its 2011 boom as predicted by sources? Qualcomm and Snapdragon can punch mighty speeds in small CPU’s; can we see faster netbook and smart phones?
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Tablets, Tablets, Tablets – there’s a lot of spot light on tablets and smart pads at the moment but for some of us (i.e. me) wanting to have a PlayBook under the Christmas tree in time for the Christmas period are going to be a little upset. BlackBerry has
now confirmed when the PlayBook, their new business tablet running a very smooth multi-tasking operating system, is due to be released and unfortunately its not good news for some of us who are eager to get our hands on it.
For the US, they are going to be due the release of the tablet in the first quarter of 2011 whereas for the UK, we are going to have to wait a little bit until the second quarter in 2011 – but there are enough leaks and pictures on the internet to wet our appetites.
Priced around the $400 mark, it could possibly translate to a rather impressing £315 which in hindsight could work and actually excel it against its competition – the iPad.
Unlike some other tablets on the market, the PlayBook definitely boasts some rather impressive spec – a dual-core 1GHz processor, a true multi-tasking operating system using QNX, a front and back facing camera and the upper hand to the iPad.
If you were to ask yourself what a large touchscreen tablet was about a year ago, no one would have expected products from Samsung, Apple and BlackBerry to be this fast and sophisticated.
Not just this, with all of the tablets around now, it’s become more and more confusing into which tablet is best suited for your business and pleasure. The question of ‘what does X have over Y’ and ‘which would best suit my needs’ is one many questions surrounding these products.
As the tablet arena has 4 major competitors within in, I will try my best to cover all the major areas of the tablets, the hardware and more.
The Apple iPad – probably the most predicatble one to start this blog with. With Apple having the head start on the smart pad market, Apple has most definately had the upper hand against the competition for a fair few months – until now.
Now when the iPad was released, it did start a revelution of smart pad competition. The only down-side with the iPad is the Hardware – the iPad has a 1GHz A4 processor (found in the iPhone 4) but only has 256MB of RAM.
The other thing with the iPad is that everyone knows that Apple holds these little conventions where they just have a massive press release and then go ‘welcome another new product to the Apple family’ – and rumor has it that there may be a new iPad on the scene around Christmas/ January time.
In terms of what could be expected from the new iPad V.2 could be anything. Undoubtedly the new iPad could punch FaceTime calling as well as a higher pixel screen for better resolution, gaming experience and just make it that little bit more cutting edge.
First Apple with their iPad, welcome Galaxy Tab a la Android. Samsung have produced this smart pad with Androud 2.2 OS which is probably the only smart pad which is close to hitting the market at the moment.
Android has definately been around on many different rip offs from China but Samsung have produced something which can be commercially sold to both SME and Consumers.
With a 1024 X 600 7″ display, the quality and pixel density is where the Galaxy Tab has the upper hand.
With manufactures such as Samsung and Apple, everyone knew that they were going to have a stab at the smart pad market. Blackberry on the other hand had a little step back, thought thoroughly about what to put into their smart pad and then just people thinking what Blackberry may actually produce.
With a dual-core 1GHz processor, 1GB RAM and both front and back facing cameras, the Playbook is something which has just come onto the smart pad market and shook it by the neck.
It is safe to say that if you’re a BlackBerry mobile phone owner, then you should be really interested in this one. Blackberry even claim that their development of their PlayBook is going to work closely with all their exisiting Blackberry products – could this be BIS and BES? Read more here
The HP Slate is going to be a smart pad but with a contriversial twist. If you notice that all of the rest of the smart pads have mobile operating systems on – the HP Slate has Windows 7 (a desktop operating system).
In comparsion to how it stacks up against the rest of the competitors – who knows?
We just need to wait for an update on what will exactly be crammed into this little bundle of joy and if it will come with a docking station for CD/DVD peripherals.
-For more information go to the original article source here at Zath
The smart pad market seems to be moving so incredibly fast over the past few weeks and big manufactures have announced some pretty interesting products to compete against Apple and their iPad.
Targeted more directly at the SME and Business market, Blackberry have announced their new ‘PlayBook’ which can be the 
answer to some businesses prayers – in terms of reliability and performance.
What makes the PlayBook different to the rest?
‘Well, each run a different OS.
Each will have their own division of the market, for example we would expect that the PlayBook will target business users with the facility of BIS and BES, whilst the iPad is more of an entertainment device, and the HP Slate purely for developers as far as we know right now.’
What it has against competitors?
Blackberry have one over on Apple straight away as not only does it support multi-tasking but it supports multi-processing.
Spec
In terms of whats inside the slate, it packs a dual-core 1GHz processor, a luctrative 7″ LCD display with full multi-touch and gesture support and a 1024X600 resolution.
To compliment the rest of the hardware the PlayBook has, Blackberry have managed to cram:
No only does the smart tab have all of the hardware, the software just works! Compatibility with HTML5, Adobe Mobile Air, Java, OpenHL and Flash10.1 for probably one of the best web browsing experiences.
Summing it up
In terms of spec – it is pretty fantastic and lets hope Blackberry can deliver with this! In all honesty though, for Blackberry to compete against all of the other tablets on the market and knock off ones, they will have to produce something grossly over powered and looks pretty good at the same time – but isn’t all Blackberry devices like this?
Rumor has it that Blackberry are developing this with 3G/4G connectivity which is all well in USA, but the UK? (read more)
Well first the release of the Blackberry Torch with OS6 and now this – what do you think of the idea of a PlayBook? Do you welcome more competition for Apple or do you just think that the PlayBook could be an overpriced luxury toy?
