I have a conspiracy theory about the worldwide consumer IT industry. Every year, all the manufacturers (except Apple — coz they’re not fun) add 1 inch to the screens of their smartphones to make consumers look more and more ridiculous when using these devices.
OK, but no, that’s probably too far from the truth but you have to admit that on paper, having a device that has 5.3″ of screen real estate can barely be called a phone anymore. In theory it all sounds bizarre, but this is one of those times where actually holding the device gives you that “aha!” moment. In short: The Samsung Galaxy Note works.
Top: Side by side with the Samsung Galaxy S II (4.3″ screen vs 5.3″ screen on the Note)
UPDATE:
Official BlackBerry Playbook PH pricing:
16GB at P23,990
32GB at P28,990
64GB at P33,990
The Playbook will be available August 6 2011 via retail and telcos.
I host a weekly tech show called ‘The Geeks’ every Wednesday from 2-4PM, live over the Internet. We archive copies for future viewing. If you’re interested, catch us at this url: http://www.flippish.com/vjlive at that time.
In this segment I show my co-host Sheena Dian the BlackBerry Playbook. We spend a half hour talking about this outlier tablet. If you want to see more photos and commentary, I featured the Playbook back in its infancy at Mobile World Congress ’11 with Andi Manzano.
Pros
Best form factor among the 7 inch tablets
Comes with neoprene case
Amazing multitask functions
Imaginative touch sensitive frame
Cons
Very limited number of apps
Noticeable UI lag (which we have to bring up given the new standards of dual core Android tablets)
We have to wait for Android Marketplace support
Very hard to do PIM and email if you don’t own a BlackBerry
No 3G version (rely on a BlackBerry phone to tether unless you connect via mobile WiFi hotspot)
Although not available here yet, the rumored price is at PHP 30,xxx.xx
Verdict
The BlackBerry Playbook has always seemed like a work in progress to me. If you track the progress of this tablet for the past 12 months you will see how RIM has brought it to life by supporting Android apps. That’s the whole irony — the Playbook (will) support Android apps but PIM only works well if you own a BlackBerry smartphone.
I honestly cannot give a real verdict. We will have to wait for the time when the Playbook truly supports Android apps. If you already own a BlackBerry smartphone, the Playbook makes sense … but so does an iPad or Android tablet. There’s the rub.
One comment to note from my high school barkada who now lives in Canada:
Since RIM is a Canadian company, the Playbook has been all over the place here in Vancouver. And yet, it is not doing so well. At all.
I’ve gotten some serious hands on time with the thing and spoken with a few Blackberry reps, Blackberry App developers, as well as some local tech bloggers, and it looks like Blackberry keeps making promises it can’t keep. They told us that the Android support and the native email client would come in June. Well, June came and went and it’s not here.
App development for the thing is apparently pretty difficult, definitely not as easy as developing for the iPad and Android OS, so Apps have been very slow to the marketplace.
For the apps that are there, most of them work fine, but there are random performance issues that keep cropping up with the Playbook… apps will hang for no reason, crash for no reason, and even sometimes refuse to load. Even Blackberry’s own browser is one of the most unreliable when it comes to performance.
It’s sad because the hardware sure looks pretty and it does promise great things. But for now, promise is all it has, it seems. There are rumblings around the country that RIM is dying fast, and the Playbook is one of the big reasons for that.
N.B. You can pre-order the Samsung Galaxy S II by following these instructions. Retail price is PHP 29,990. Discounted price is PHP 26,990.
For the past three weeks I’ve been playing with both the prototype and the actual unit of Samsung’s lastest Android gem, the Galaxy S II. I first got to hold the device back in Mobile World Congress ’11 in Barcelona and it is, without doubt, the most highly anticipated smartphone in the Android universe because it’s simply mind blowing.
This phone deserves to be reviewed from two perspectives: (1) as the successor to the first Samsung Galaxy S which was also highly popular and (2) from the perspective of an Android device and how it compares to the competition.
OK, enough of basketball and we’re now back to the geekiness. Today, Juno showed off the new NB200 which is Toshiba’s take on the netbook. Although a bit late in the game compared to other brands the NB200 is showered with praise. Three USB ports (one of which is a charging port), external VGA out, removable battery, webcam, and really big letters on the keypad make this mini lovely.
UPDATE II: A ton more photo comparisons here as I was able to borrow an E72 over lunch from the comms people of Nokia SG. The E72 will retail in the Philippines for about P22,000.00
UPDATE: Hey thanks for visiting. If you love these early hands on features and phone reviews, please support me by subscribing to my blog’s email feed:
Lo and behold, the brand new Nokia E72 was accidentally unveiled yesterday via a leaked video over the Internet. No scandals here of that sort: according to some Nokia execs who were at Nokia Connections ’09, one of the tech guys accidentally classified one top secret video as “public” instead of “private” thus leaking one of four videos for the new phone launches today. Oh well, it’s probably a good thing anyway — think of the Internet coverage on the leak!
Soooo … yay! It is thus of no surprise to have the Nokia E72 launched today at Nokia Connections, alongside the ultra affordable 5530 XpressMusic and mid range 3710 Fold. This post is dedicated to the latest enterprise device, the E72. Hands down, the E72 is an amazing phone that borrows from everything that made the E71 great and the hardworking engineers over at Nokia were quick to add a few interesting touches.
