CLOSING THOUGHTS
The BlackBerry PlayBook is a solid entry by RIM into the tablet space. A good build combined with a promising OS certainly gives the PlayBook plenty of potential. But that potential also speaks to the device's Achilles heel.
The biggest challenge with the BlackBerry PlayBook is that it feels unfinished — even more so than Motorola's Xoom Android Honeycomb tablet when it first launched. This makes it a bit hard to review because a lot of the device's key features still aren't there but also are confirmed to be on the way.
I certainly could see this tablet working out quite well, though, once RIM gets everything dialed in. The only question now is how long that will take. In the meantime, fans of the BlackBerry ecosystem have a lot to be pleased about with the PlayBook, which gives a glimpse of what might be in store for the aging BlackBerry smartphone platform in the future.
RATING: 3.5 stars
UPDATES:
OS v1.0.5 (June 2011): RIM released this update just as I was wrapping up my review, which has since been edited to reflect the changes (i.e. gripes about the inability to charge while powered off or make in-app payments have now been taken out). For a complete list of changes from the update, check out our BlackBerry Tablet OS v1.0.5 article.
