Laptop Thoughts: The Blackberry Playbook Review, Joshua Topolsky Style

"To say that the BlackBerry PlayBook - and a review of the PlayBook - is something of an anticipated event would be an understatement. From the first moment the tech community caught wind (and sight) of Research In Motion's first foray into the tablet world, everyone seems to be on pins and needles. It's not just that another company is making a charge at Apple's iPad - it's also that RIM has been in something of a bind lately. The once-unassailable company has watched marketshare slinking away in the direction of iOS and Android, due at least in part to a current crop of devices and new OS which leave much to be desired. But RIM hasn't been sitting still, either; the Canadian phone-maker has been snapping up software companies like QNX and the impressive UI team of TAT, all in service of supercharging the next lifecycle of BlackBerry products. And the PlayBook is the... ahem, fruits of those labors."

If anyone was wondering if Joshua Topolsky's excellent reviews would still be coming after he left Engadget, wonder no more: his review of the Blackberry Playbook is insightful and very detailed. Reading it, I have to admit that I'm a bit surprised: I frankly didn't hold very high hopes for the Playbook, if only because historically RIM has proven they're reluctant to change and modernize; every time I use a Blackberry, underneath the thin veneer of shiny graphics and icons, I see a UI that looks like it came from a paper in the '90s. RIM has always seem stuck in the past to me, but no more: the Playbook has a lot of impressive UI chops going for it.

Unfortunately, the impressive UI and performance can't make up for the lack of apps - and we're not just talking a lack of third party apps, because the Playbook ships without a calendar, contact, or email app of it's own. You can only get access to your PIM data - including email - by synching it with a Blackberry phone. How insane is that? Very insane. RIM has shipped the Playbook in an even more unfinished state than Motorola did with the XOOM...and that's saying a lot!