Blackberry Playbook in my hands
Hi, Habr!
It is not a secret to anyone that at the end of March the Research In Motion Ltd. campaign ended . , each participant of which could get a Blackberry Playbook tablet computer for free. Most recently, I received this device, and now, I gathered my courage to tell about it to the community. Read in my blog or welcome under cat.
')
This is my first ever review of devices. And since By coincidence, for some time I was an Apple iPad user, I intuitively compare the Playbook with it.
A cherished letter ...
Blackberry Playbook pleasantly surprised me. Pleased with the device is not its free :-)
As you know, the device works on a real-time operating system built on the basis of QNX. When I first found out about this, I considered this a kind of public relations ploy. But in reality, QNX (more precisely, Blackberry Tablet OS) provides excellent application performance on a dual-core 1GHz processor: the interface responsiveness is very good, and the animation is smooth and without the slightest lag. But the main thing is multitasking.
It is pleasantly surprising when you can launch one application to turn on the music, simultaneously launch the video recording application and simultaneously play Need For Speed ​​Undercover, optimized specifically for the Playbook. And on the "tape" running applications can be seen in real time what is happening in all of them at once without any brakes. True, if the application does not have enough memory in a cramped 1 GB, then it closes, without warning about its intentions.
The front panel of the device does not contain buttons. Going to the "desktop", showing the keyboard, closing and expanding the application to the full screen is done with gestures, touches on the sensitive frame!
In order not to take up extra space on the small Playbook screen, all the toolbars with application tools are hidden and shown using the swipe from top to bottom on the frame.
The front side of the device is equipped with a 3 megapixel camera and a light sensor, thanks to which the high-contrast screen shines less brightly in the dark, so you do not need to make extra movements to adjust the brightness to the environment.
In addition, the device is equipped with a 5 MP camera on the back side. Both cameras support 1080p HD video recording.
When the screen size is 1.5 times smaller than that of the Apple iPad, the matrix has a resolution of 1024x600 pixels. Fonts look smooth and attractive.
The device has a significant weight (about 400 grams), but if you hold it for a long time, your hands do not get tired, because Because of its small size (19 cm large side), it is convenient to hold it with two hands, and all the controls in the applications are easily accessible to the fingers. Those. the device does not need to intercept with one hand to reach any distant button, if you can not put it on the table.
The reverse side of the device is covered with a pleasant to the touch rubberized dense coating, so getting out of his hands is not so easy for him.
To wake the device from sleep, you need to make a gesture on the touch frame that instantly turn it on.
Honestly, from this moment positive emotions fade.
Standard controls resemble the good old gnome, which is somewhat unexpected. But the icons send to the distant past unreadable abstractions that are not amenable to semiotics .
And here begins another story. I'll start with the browser.
The web browser on the Blackberry Playbook scored 258 points + 9 bonus points according to the test on html5test.com , which roughly corresponds to Opera 11. browser. There is support for SVG, MathML, Canvas (20/20). Video (21/31) does not support subtitles, as well as Ogg and WebM. No WebGL support.
Thanks to the good performance of the device as a whole, even pages with a large number of elements scroll smoothly, zooming is done with a familiar gesture with two fingers.
Switching between browser tabs is performed by calling the additional menu using the swipe from top to bottom on the touch frame. What did not like is that when you open a link in a new tab, there is no visual notification about the appearance of a new tab. It seems that the link you are trying to click on does not open.
And also, the browser chrome (its header with the address) can be hidden so that only the line with the progress bar, page title and the small back button remain at the top.
Search in the browser is carried out through the address bar, there is a choice of search engines Google, Bing, Yahoo, AOL. There is a default font setting and other familiar options for desktop browsers.
Playing videos from youtube, facebook, vimeo and vk does not cause a name. In general, flash in the browser (supported by Adobe Flash 10.1) runs on 4/5. Many flash games can be played directly from the browser, but there are some weak lags.
Canvas games on the ImpactJS engine failed to start. Moreover, to debug web pages you need to connect to the device with a separate debager. There is no developer mode in the browser.
It is also important to note that the standard set of applications includes applications "... to go": Word, Sheet, PowerPoint.
Word allows you to read and edit .doc, .docx, .rtf files directly from the device.
Sheet is similar, but for Excel files. It should be noted that Sheet is not convenient for input due to the lack of a reference book of functions; it is impossible to specify a cell that should be inserted into the formula. In general, Excel '97 level.
“PowerPoint to go” is a useful application that allows you to organize presentations directly from the device. You can connect a monitor, TV or projector to the device via HDMI (you need an HDMI-> VGA adapter, which is not included) and switch slides by thumbing through them.
Downloading content to the device happens like a regular USB flash drive, but for this you need to install a special Blackberry Device Manager driver, the distribution kit of which is available directly from the device when it is connected to the USB connector. Unfortunately, the driver is available only for Mac OS and Windows.
Owners of Blackberry smartphones can use them with the Playbook. The application for the Playbook, Blackberry Bridge allows you to distribute Wi-Fi Internet to smartphones via Bluetooth, work with a list of contacts and transfer content between devices.
App World App for Playbook is really small.
In general, the number of applications is growing. Dozens of new applications appear in a day. The share of free applications is noticeably lower than the paid ones. Content quality is at the level of the Android Market. The audience pays.
Few beautiful free apps. At first glance, if the application has a beautiful interface, then it costs from $ 4.
Basically, “business” applications are Internet banks, trading applications, applications for organizing tasks.
In the category of "games" of applications most of all, however I did not consider paid applications. Among the innumerable tetris and noughts crosses there are few interesting and new games. Loved the port of the famous physical puzzle Doodle Blast . If you go through all genres, there are still enough places in App World and for porting famous gameplay ideas.
According to this review from Distimo , dated April 27, 2011, the growth dynamics of the market for Blackberry applications is quite steep.
Particularly interesting is the development of events now, because the threshold for entering the development for the Blackberry Playbook is low, despite the apparent closeness of the platform. Applications can be written in Java, in Adobe AIR, in HTML5, and porting simple flash-games consists only in recompiling from the Blackberry Playbook AIR SDK, and you can not really think about performance.
I assume that at the moment, this platform is attractive for companies that are only going to enter the market of mobile development ( in the US, Blackberry is 16% of the market of mobile devices ) and is a good platform for experiments. If you need to quickly get downloads and user ratings, in my opinion, this is the right place.
However, do not forget that in the first place Research In Motion Ltd. position your device as a “tablet computer for business tasks”.
Official promo page (more sexy pictures)
Playbook order if you are in Europe
The first news on Habré about the appearance of the device in Russia
Maxim Pavlov from Flexis tells how to create an application for Blackberry using Adobe AIR 2.6
May 15, 2011 Research In Motion Ltd. announced a new promotion with valuable prizes ! Here we have already written about this in more detail.
UPD: A minute ago it became known from the RIM support service about the start of sales, including to Russia, on amazon.com since June 16.
I hope the topic came to mind and was not boring.
In the next topic about the Playbook, I would like to talk about the development for this device. Are you interested, dear Habr?
It is not a secret to anyone that at the end of March the Research In Motion Ltd. campaign ended . , each participant of which could get a Blackberry Playbook tablet computer for free. Most recently, I received this device, and now, I gathered my courage to tell about it to the community. Read in my blog or welcome under cat.
')
This is my first ever review of devices. And since By coincidence, for some time I was an Apple iPad user, I intuitively compare the Playbook with it.
A cherished letter ...
Blackberry Playbook pleasantly surprised me. Pleased with the device is not its free :-)
Feel
As you know, the device works on a real-time operating system built on the basis of QNX. When I first found out about this, I considered this a kind of public relations ploy. But in reality, QNX (more precisely, Blackberry Tablet OS) provides excellent application performance on a dual-core 1GHz processor: the interface responsiveness is very good, and the animation is smooth and without the slightest lag. But the main thing is multitasking.
It is pleasantly surprising when you can launch one application to turn on the music, simultaneously launch the video recording application and simultaneously play Need For Speed ​​Undercover, optimized specifically for the Playbook. And on the "tape" running applications can be seen in real time what is happening in all of them at once without any brakes. True, if the application does not have enough memory in a cramped 1 GB, then it closes, without warning about its intentions.
The front panel of the device does not contain buttons. Going to the "desktop", showing the keyboard, closing and expanding the application to the full screen is done with gestures, touches on the sensitive frame!
In order not to take up extra space on the small Playbook screen, all the toolbars with application tools are hidden and shown using the swipe from top to bottom on the frame.
The front side of the device is equipped with a 3 megapixel camera and a light sensor, thanks to which the high-contrast screen shines less brightly in the dark, so you do not need to make extra movements to adjust the brightness to the environment.
In addition, the device is equipped with a 5 MP camera on the back side. Both cameras support 1080p HD video recording.
When the screen size is 1.5 times smaller than that of the Apple iPad, the matrix has a resolution of 1024x600 pixels. Fonts look smooth and attractive.
The device has a significant weight (about 400 grams), but if you hold it for a long time, your hands do not get tired, because Because of its small size (19 cm large side), it is convenient to hold it with two hands, and all the controls in the applications are easily accessible to the fingers. Those. the device does not need to intercept with one hand to reach any distant button, if you can not put it on the table.
The reverse side of the device is covered with a pleasant to the touch rubberized dense coating, so getting out of his hands is not so easy for him.
To wake the device from sleep, you need to make a gesture on the touch frame that instantly turn it on.
Look
Honestly, from this moment positive emotions fade.
Standard controls resemble the good old gnome, which is somewhat unexpected. But the icons send to the distant past unreadable abstractions that are not amenable to semiotics .
For work
And here begins another story. I'll start with the browser.
The web browser on the Blackberry Playbook scored 258 points + 9 bonus points according to the test on html5test.com , which roughly corresponds to Opera 11. browser. There is support for SVG, MathML, Canvas (20/20). Video (21/31) does not support subtitles, as well as Ogg and WebM. No WebGL support.
Thanks to the good performance of the device as a whole, even pages with a large number of elements scroll smoothly, zooming is done with a familiar gesture with two fingers.
Switching between browser tabs is performed by calling the additional menu using the swipe from top to bottom on the touch frame. What did not like is that when you open a link in a new tab, there is no visual notification about the appearance of a new tab. It seems that the link you are trying to click on does not open.
And also, the browser chrome (its header with the address) can be hidden so that only the line with the progress bar, page title and the small back button remain at the top.
Search in the browser is carried out through the address bar, there is a choice of search engines Google, Bing, Yahoo, AOL. There is a default font setting and other familiar options for desktop browsers.
Playing videos from youtube, facebook, vimeo and vk does not cause a name. In general, flash in the browser (supported by Adobe Flash 10.1) runs on 4/5. Many flash games can be played directly from the browser, but there are some weak lags.
Canvas games on the ImpactJS engine failed to start. Moreover, to debug web pages you need to connect to the device with a separate debager. There is no developer mode in the browser.
It is also important to note that the standard set of applications includes applications "... to go": Word, Sheet, PowerPoint.
Word allows you to read and edit .doc, .docx, .rtf files directly from the device.
Sheet is similar, but for Excel files. It should be noted that Sheet is not convenient for input due to the lack of a reference book of functions; it is impossible to specify a cell that should be inserted into the formula. In general, Excel '97 level.
“PowerPoint to go” is a useful application that allows you to organize presentations directly from the device. You can connect a monitor, TV or projector to the device via HDMI (you need an HDMI-> VGA adapter, which is not included) and switch slides by thumbing through them.
Downloading content to the device happens like a regular USB flash drive, but for this you need to install a special Blackberry Device Manager driver, the distribution kit of which is available directly from the device when it is connected to the USB connector. Unfortunately, the driver is available only for Mac OS and Windows.
Owners of Blackberry smartphones can use them with the Playbook. The application for the Playbook, Blackberry Bridge allows you to distribute Wi-Fi Internet to smartphones via Bluetooth, work with a list of contacts and transfer content between devices.
App World applications
App World App for Playbook is really small.
In general, the number of applications is growing. Dozens of new applications appear in a day. The share of free applications is noticeably lower than the paid ones. Content quality is at the level of the Android Market. The audience pays.
Few beautiful free apps. At first glance, if the application has a beautiful interface, then it costs from $ 4.
Basically, “business” applications are Internet banks, trading applications, applications for organizing tasks.
In the category of "games" of applications most of all, however I did not consider paid applications. Among the innumerable tetris and noughts crosses there are few interesting and new games. Loved the port of the famous physical puzzle Doodle Blast . If you go through all genres, there are still enough places in App World and for porting famous gameplay ideas.
Hasty conclusion
According to this review from Distimo , dated April 27, 2011, the growth dynamics of the market for Blackberry applications is quite steep.
Particularly interesting is the development of events now, because the threshold for entering the development for the Blackberry Playbook is low, despite the apparent closeness of the platform. Applications can be written in Java, in Adobe AIR, in HTML5, and porting simple flash-games consists only in recompiling from the Blackberry Playbook AIR SDK, and you can not really think about performance.
I assume that at the moment, this platform is attractive for companies that are only going to enter the market of mobile development ( in the US, Blackberry is 16% of the market of mobile devices ) and is a good platform for experiments. If you need to quickly get downloads and user ratings, in my opinion, this is the right place.
However, do not forget that in the first place Research In Motion Ltd. position your device as a “tablet computer for business tasks”.
Where to go?
Official promo page (more sexy pictures)
Playbook order if you are in Europe
The first news on Habré about the appearance of the device in Russia
Maxim Pavlov from Flexis tells how to create an application for Blackberry using Adobe AIR 2.6
Contest for web developers
May 15, 2011 Research In Motion Ltd. announced a new promotion with valuable prizes ! Here we have already written about this in more detail.
UPD: A minute ago it became known from the RIM support service about the start of sales, including to Russia, on amazon.com since June 16.
Thank!
I hope the topic came to mind and was not boring.
In the next topic about the Playbook, I would like to talk about the development for this device. Are you interested, dear Habr?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/119632/
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