Blackberry Playbook experience, anyone?

[davidmi]

Has anyone had long-term experience of the Blackberry Playbook? With the new OS just out offering proper e-mail and a £169 price tag, it is looking a suitable buy for my purposes. We (well my wife has done some commandeering) already have an iPad 1 but I would prefer something that is cheaper, more portable (poacher's pocketable?) just for e-mail, occasional browsing and opening or even editing Word files from time-to-time. A Playbook keyboard is out in the US so a reasonable price on that would make it look worthwhile. Never had a BB of any kind but I believe build quality is good.

 

[Sp!ke]

I think that for £169 they are an absolute bargain. Buy two.

 

[John]

Not so popular has its advantages.

The iPads I know of just get used for the same thing as what you want the BB for.

Snobbery level is the only major difference I suspect.

 

[davidmi]

Thanks for those comments. I like the iPad and the range of software available but for my limited requirements another one would be price overkill. If I can pair the Playbook with my currently redundant 3G Huawei modem then I will be very pleased. Will see if I can get hands-on with one in one of DSG's finest this week. Doesn't worry me too much if the Playbook concept bombs completely in the future as long as I get it set up to do what I need in time. It's only two years since my Compaq Aero 8000 netbook precursor running Windows CE fell apart after nearly 10 years loyal service, including five years in the hot and humid tropics, and long after all its support forums had closed up shop.

 

[mw_C32]

I bought one on recommendation from Sp!ke and use it as you have described alongside my ipad 1.

Very pleased with it so far, tip for you, if you sign up to Zaino you get a free $25 purchase. I've just subscribed to 10 copies of a pc mag?? for free...I think this offer ends at end of March (2012)

I love the portability of it over the ipad.

 

[davidmi]

I bought one on recommendation from Sp!ke and use it as you have described alongside my ipad 1.

Very pleased with it so far, tip for you, if you sign up to Zaino you get a free $25 purchase. I've just subscribed to 10 copies of a pc mag?? for free...I think this offer ends at end of March (2012)

I love the portability of it over the ipad.

Thanks for the info. After a false start when the local PCWorld had a 'dead' one on display and said they were "waiting for Blackberry to fix it", I took the plunge with an online 5% off and the little beastie is in Royal Mail's Yorkshire centre as of last night. I can't understand why Amazon are asking £50-60 more and some other retailers are £100+ extra.

 

[mw_C32]

Well done, I got mine from Currys @ £169, its very unusual that the online retailers are not discounting as much as the high st stores...

Enjoy.

 

[flango]

Had mine over 6 months now and it's brilliant particularly now we are on OS2 portability over the ipad is far better and powerpoint presentations from it are a doddle, means I no longer have to take my laptop on certain business trips which cannot be said with the iPad. At the prices at the moment these are a bargain and if anyone is travelling to the states or Canada they can be had there for $149.99 even more of a bargain.

best value for money tablet on the market, even more so if you run a Blackberry smartphone too

 

[davidmi]

In case anyone else is thinking of getting one of these, there is a serious problem of wi-fi connectivity and access when setting it up for the first time. I haven't succeeded with mine and the problem is raised continually on Blackberry forums. Blackberry have done nothing about it for the past year and one of their suggestions is to try a public, unsecured network for set up (translates as Macdonalds, Starbucks or similar!) to get round any router security at home. That's £5 worth of petrol and best part of half an hour there and back for me.

 

[flango]

In case anyone else is thinking of getting one of these, there is a serious problem of wi-fi connectivity and access when setting it up for the first time. I haven't succeeded with mine and the problem is raised continually on Blackberry forums. Blackberry have done nothing about it for the past year and one of their suggestions is to try a public, unsecured network for set up (translates as Macdonalds, Starbucks or similar!) to get round any router security at home. That's £5 worth of petrol and best part of half an hour there and back for me.

Can you not turn the security off on the router and then back on when you have set up? problem solved. Set mine up with full security on my Sky D-link router without any issues at all.

 

[Sp!ke]

I set mine up in a hotel lobby which had all sorts of silly security in my way.

I'd say you're best off doing this at home than at a mcdonalds - takes seconds.

 

[mw_C32]

No issues with mine.

 

[davidmi]

Quick update. Tried all sorts of work-arounds with the Playbook: security off at the router, my 3G mi-fi, Macdonalds and a hotel with an open system. No joy with any of them. I can ping RIM servers in the USA (not Canada, however) so the wi-fi is working but it just would not activate. Took it back to a PC World branch who checked their stock and found it all predated the August 2011 update to deal with wi-fi problems so I decided just to get a refund after reading on forums about people trying for a month without success to activate one. The manager did claim they had very few returns on the Playbook. Will wait until summer now to see if Apple really do bring out their mini-Ipad although I suspect they don't feel threatened by this sector at the moment.