BlackBerry Playbook Tablet unveiled, looks impressive

BlackBerry has (finally) announced its tablet. Called Playbook, the BlackBerry tablet features a 7″ (1024×600) touch display, a dual-core processor, Flash 10.1 and a micro-USB connector that is nowhere to be found on the iPad (without an adapter). The demo looks really cool, and although we’ll know for sure only after trying it for ourselves, but on the surface, this seem to blow away Android-based tablets because it features a user-interface that seems much more suitable to a tablet, instead of using a tablet like a “big phone”. RIM is putting forward the fact that its Playbook has “real multitasking” (unlike Apple’s more restrictive one) and that it runs Flash 10.1, which means “a full web experience”, at least on paper. RIM also says that its tablet is more secure and positions it as a “professional” tablet at the moment. This is a big announcement for RIM, and one that will shake the Tablet market a little. Pricing has not been set and as you can guess, this is going to be a major factor when it comes to sales. We suspect that it will be more expensive than the iPad – that’s probably why it has been positioned as a “pro” tablet. That said, we are also hoping that RIM will surprise us. As with other RIM devices, it will probably be available with multiple carriers. More photos and videos in the full post

On the software side, RIM is taking things very seriously: it has announced an advertising platform and a ton of developer-related SDKs and tools. We should see if all these efforts will bear fruits in the next year or so. Here’s a video, courtesy of our friends from NetbookNews. It will show you what the Playbook looks like in the real world:

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