Posted by Eric Torres on Wed, Sep 29, 2010 @ 08:41 AM
BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) announced on Monday their intentions to be the latest wireless-device maker to step into the tablet computer market with a touchscreen device called 
the BlackBerry PlayBook. At the company’s annual DevCon conference in San Francisco, RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis marketed the Playbook as “the first enterprise-ready tablet”. He also mentioned the tablet is designed to “amplify” the experience of the company’s BlackBerry smartphones, which can pair with the tablet through a Bluetooth connection.
The BlackBerry PlayBook is the Operating System and the type of product a lot of people been wanting to see from Research In Motion for a while now, and it looks like it's going to deliver. It boasts BlackBerry integration, out-of-the-box BlackBerry Enterprise Server compatibility and security features designed to appeal to businesses as well as true multitasking, gaming and multimedia capabilities. The operating system delivers a full web experience including Flash as well as some pretty robust hardware specs:
● BlackBerry Tablet OS with support for symmetric
multiprocessing
● 7" LCD touch screen with full multi-touch and gesture
support
● 1 GHz dual-core processor
● 1 GB RAM
● Dual HD cameras (3 MP front facing, 5 MP rear facing),
supports 1080 p HD video recording
● Video playback: 1080p HD Video, h.264, MPEG, DivX,
WMV
● Audio playback: MP3, AAC, WMA
● HDMI video output
● Wi-Fi - 802.11 a/b/g/n
● Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
● Connectors: microHDMI, microUSB, charging contacts
● Open, flexible application platform with support for
WebKit/HTML-5, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile
AIR, Adobe Reader, POSIX, OpenGL, Java
● Ultra-thin and portable: Measures 5.1" x 7.6" x 0.4"
(130mm x 193mm x 10mm), weighing less than a
pound (approximately 0.9 lb or 400g)
Research In Motion did not announce a release date or pricing information, but did mention that the PlayBook will not be available until next year, sadly missing the holiday season. RIM intends to also offer 3G and 4G models in the future.
Without sacrificing the BlackBerry enterprise heritage, the future of BlackBerry looks promising once again!