BlackBerry Playbook

The reviews are in! Everyone is talking about the new tablet offering from R.I.M. Many are touting its size, screen resolution, and interface as excellent, but did R.I.M. rush it to market?

Early reviews are noting that the new tablet is shipping without native email, contact, BBM or calendar support... (pause) Really? A company built on providing robust email support for enterprise users is not supplying native email support in its new tablet? I thought I had seen it all... Apparently the new device can only support email, contacts, or calendars by first tethering to a BlackBerry device.

Then as I read through the reviews, I noticed something else. Without an email client constantly pinging the Blackberry Enterprise Server(BES), the Playbook battery still only gets just over seven hours of battery life...

Credit: Anandtech.com

My hypothesis is that there is an email client for the Playbook, but it will not be released at launch because it would make the battery life decrease drastically. My guess, the battery will last about 25% less than it does at this point in time.

Battery life on the Blackberry that your new Playbook is connected to is now drained even faster because it is constantly using Bluetooth to transfer data back and forth. If your Blackberry is your main mode of communication, I suggest that you buy an extended life battery.

I personally feel that the omissions were purposeful and serve to mask a battery life issue. To me, this is a rush job and needs to be fixed before coming to market.