Research In Motion (RIM) has introduced the company’s new tablet, Playbook, at their annual Developer’s Conference in San Francisco. Despite the playful name, the Playbook is focused on business, which makes sense taking into account that this is also the main target of RIM’s smartphone, the Blackberry.
Though the Playbook won’t be commercially available until early 2011, we already learnt about some of its features. It’ll run a special tablet-oriented OS developed by QNX – recently acquired by RIM – and will have Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity. It won’t have support for 3G but you’ll be able to get that by tethering to a Blackberry – another smart move for them, but a bit of an annoyance for the user.
During the device’s presentation, RIM boasted about its ability to run Flash and Adobe AIR apps. According to the company’s founder, Dan Dodge, the Playbook will be “an incredible gaming platform for publishers and the players”. Surely the dual-core 1 GHz CPU, the 1 GB of RAM and the 7-inch, 1024×600 screen will help! Other features in the Playbook include two cameras (front and rear) HD video capabilities, HDMI port and a microUSB jack.
With the launch of the Playbook, the tablet market is getting increasingly crowded and competitive. I’m already looking forward to seeing future tablet wars between Apple and RIM.