The PlayBook is RIM's first foray into the burgeoning tablet market, a market already populated by the Motorola Xoom and the HTC Flyer which I had a look at earlier in the week.
The device runs a new operating system developed (well, acquired) by RIM specifically for the PlayBook, based on the QNX platform. Marketed by RIM as the first "professional grade" tablet, it is arguably aimed squarely at business professionals rather than consumers, and why not.

Used as a standalone device the PlayBook acts as a perfectly decent web browser and multimedia device - the screen being one of the best I have seen, but criticisms have been levelled against it for requiring that you pair with an existing BlackBerry Smartphone via a secured Bluetooth connection to access corporate email, contacts and calendar data as well as even BlackBerry Messenger. However this is entirely deliberate: RIM's focus when designing their products has always been on security first and foremost. Based on the fact that a number of high-profile security breaches have been reported recently due to laptops being left in the back of taxis, the less data stored on these devices the better, and with the case of the PlayBook no data is permanently stored on the device at all thanks to the BlackBerry Bridge feature which I'll look at in a moment.

So what's it like? The promotional video below gives a teaser introduction to the device and more videos are available here.

Promotional video

Specifications

Ultra Portable, super convenient

• Height - 5.1" / 130mm
• Width - 7.6" / 194mm
• Depth - 0.4" / 10mm
• Weight - 0.9lbs / 425g
• 7" LCD display, 1024 x 600 screen resolution

Professional grade performance

• Full computing power in tablet format
• 1 GHz dual-core processor
• 1 GB RAM
• Symmetric multi-processing

Web without limits

• Games, media, apps and everything the real Internet offers
• Full Adobe Flash 10.1 enabled
• Built-in support for HTML5
• No-compromise rendering of text, graphics and video

High-speed connections

• 3G network access using your BlackBerry smartphone as a modem
• 4G network access available on BlackBerry 4G PlayBook tablet
• WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1+EDR

Amplified BlackBerry experience

• Wirelessly connect to your BlackBerry smartphone for real time access to email, calendar, address book, task list and BBM (requires device software v5 or higher on your BlackBerry smartphone)

Best-in-class media

• 3 MP high-definition forward-facing camera
• 5 MP high-definition rear-facing camera
• Codec support for superior media playback, creation and video calling
• 1080p HD video, H.264, MPEG4, WMV HDMI video output
• Micro USB and Micro HDMI ports

Video-conferencing

• Crystal clear HD display
• Rich stereo sound
• Dual HD video cameras

Built for business

• Out-of-the-box compatibility with BlackBerry Enterprise Server
• Seamless pairing for a secure window into your BlackBerry smartphone
• Corporate data access
• Secure and manageable

BlackBerry Tablet OS

• Powerful, user-friendly QNX technology
• Multi-processing for true multitasking

Rich application ecosystem

• Rapid development environment
• Reliable BlackBerry Tablet OS, powered by QNX technology
• Supports POSIX OS, SMP, OpenGL, BlackBerry 6 WebKit, Adobe Flash, Java and Adobe Mobile AIR

Home Screen

Navigating around the PlayBook, launching, dismissing and switching between applications takes only a little time to get used, and you are guided through a brief introductory demo as part of the initial startup process. Applications are dismissed by swiping your finger up the screen to turn the current screen into a thumbnail, at which point all running programs' thumbnails are displayed and can be switched between - it's an elegant interface that responds well on the PlayBook's hardware.
The main home screen itself features a tray of icons that can be dragged up the screen to display all available apps, and applications can be grouped into "Media", "Games", "Favourites", etc, similar to the BlackBerry Smartphone interface.

Applications

The applications pre-loaded on the PlayBook are as follows:

• Browser
• GMail
• Hotmail
• Yahoo! Mail
• AOL Mail
• Twitter
• Setup
• Word To Go
• YouTube
• Weather
• Voice Notes
• Videos
• Video Chat
• Podcasts
• Pictures
• Music Store
• Help
• Clock
• Camera
• Calculator
• Bing Maps
• App World
• Music
• Slideshow To Go
• Slacker Radio
• Sheet To Go
• NFB
• Kobo Books
• Adobe Reader

A steadily increasing number of Apps, both free and paid, are also available to download from the AppWorld.

A future update to PlayBook will also allow you download and run applications created for Android, the PlayBook running a Java engine that is compatible with Android's, opening up the range of applications available massively.

The GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail and Twitter shortcuts simply open the device's browser rather than being standalone apps in their own right.

Web Browser

The browser on the PlayBook uses the ubiquitous WebKit engine, but with Flash support built-in a much wider proportion of the web is available to you than on other devices.

Multiple tabs can be opened and navigated between

Music & Video

The PlayBook ships with a Music Store application, powered by 7digital, that allows you to browse for and purchase new music tracks

and the Music player application provides the ability to create playlists as well as browse your music collection by artist, album and genre.

The video player supports the majority of file formats you'll need, and the HDMI connector allows you to play films on an HD television directly, or anything that is currently on the PlayBook's screen, be it a presentation, web page or whatever.

The PlayBook also ships with an NFB application (a Canadian online broadcasting company) with free standard and high-def video feeds available:

and YouTube is also available in a separate app:

Synchronisation of media is handled by the BlackBerry Desktop Manager software on both Windows and Mac, either via USB or wirelessly, and it is also possible to access the PlayBook's storage directly via WiFi (http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/access-your-playbook-files-wifi-macos)

Camera

The PlayBook features a 5MP camera on the rear as well as a 3MP front-facing camera. The rear camera also shoots 1080p video footage. Neither camera has a flash, but it is hard to imagine anyone using a tablet form-factor device as their main digital camera in any case: it's nice to have and would be useful for capturing images during a presentation, say. What the PlayBook does do well is video calling using its built-in client:

Images taken with the camera can be browsed in the Pictures application, along with bundled wallpaper images:

Documents To Go

One of the strengths of the PlayBook is the inclusion of the full version of Documents To Go, providing the ability to view Word documents, spreadsheets and presentations, as well as the ability to create and edit Word documents and spreadsheets (not presentations).

Miscellaneous

The PlayBook can be used as an eBook reader thanks to the inclusion of the Kobo client:

Bing Maps provides mapping and navigation services, beautifully rendered on the PlayBook's screen:

A number of utility apps are also bundled, including a calculator:

clock / timer / stopwatch:

voice recorder:

weather app:

and podcast app:

BlackBerry Bridge

Bridge is the feature that allows you to pair with a BlackBerry Smartphone and manage your emails, contacts, calendar, BlackBerry Messenger and Smartphone files from the PlayBook.
Both BIS and BES-connected Smartphones can be accessed, but when connecting to a BES-enabled Smartphone a number of security measures are enforced. I have detailed how the Bridge works in a separate article here, but essentially the PlayBook acts as a large screen and keyboard for your Smartphone and accesses the data stored on the phone without storing anything locally. As soon as the Bridge connection is closed there is no trace of any of the work conducted on the tablet. For businesses concerned about security this is an elegant solution.
For those who consider the requirement of a separate Smartphone a weakness of the PlayBook, a native email and PIM client as well as a native BBM client are already in the works - http://blogs.blackberry.com/2011/05/blackberry-playbook-native-email-app...

If you don't have a BlackBerry Smartphone and are using the WiFi-only model of the PlayBook, corporate connectivity is still possible thanks to the inclusion of a VPN client with support for IPSec - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-cisco-vpn-blackberry-playbook

Summary

The overall physical dimensions of the PlayBook, combined with the high resolution screen and responsive of the operating system make it a joy to use. The number of apps available for the PlayBook specifically in the AppWord is limited, but this will change in the future especially when the ability to use Android apps comes along.
As a pure web browsing and multimedia device the PlayBook can hold its own against the competition, and for business users who already have a BlackBerry Smartphone the PlayBook will suit the requirements of the IT department in terms of security and with its native document editing capability and integration with your existing Smartphone email and BBM accounts there are no complicated deployment concerns to worry about - in fact setting up the Bridge really couldn't be easier.

Contact Brightpoint today on +44 (0)870 849 0225 to check availability.

A copy of the PlayBook user manual is available here.