{"id":20028,"date":"2011-05-04T08:15:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-04T06:15:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-04T08:15:00","modified_gmt":"2011-05-04T06:15:00","slug":"blackberry-playbook-sa-launch-details-emerge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/gadgets\/20028-blackberry-playbook-sa-launch-details-emerge.html","title":{"rendered":"BlackBerry PlayBook SA launch details emerge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Research in Motion (RIM) launched<\/a> the Wi-Fi only versions of their iPad contender in North America earlier this month and until recently it wasn’t clear when the BlackBerry maker’s PlayBook tablet would be available in South Africa.<\/p>\n

The BlackBerry PlayBook is a multi-touch capable tablet computer with a 7-inch display running RIM’s newly developed BlackBerry Tablet operating system (OS) which is based on QNX, a recent acquisition of RIM’s.<\/p>\n

In the United States the PlayBook has the same price point as the Apple iPad: a model with 16GB storage will cost $499, the 32GB model sells for $599 and the 64GB for $699.<\/p>\n

Although the expected South African retail price of the device couldn’t be confirmed, MTN SA’s head of device portfolio management Teddy Maduna<\/a> said that they “anticipate to deliver the PlayBook within the month of June.”<\/p>\n

Vodacom couldn’t comment on when they would launch the device or what they would charge for it, but did confirm that it won’t be the PlayBook that supports 3G connectivity that arrives in SA first.<\/p>\n

\"BlackBerry<\/p>\n

Cell C didn’t comment by the time of publication.<\/p>\n

With smartphones and tablets taking so long to make their way to our shores from elsewhere in the world, South Africans may feel as if they regularly receive the short end of the stick when it comes to new technology launches.<\/p>\n

However, the PlayBook making its South African appearance some months after its international launch is not necessarily a bad thing as it affords locals an opportunity to see whether RIM has addressed the shortcomings of the device before buying one.<\/p>\n

In addition to lacking apps such as a Twitter client, the PlayBook has also been criticised in the media for lacking features such as a native e-mail client, contacts list, calendar and access to BlackBerry Messenger.<\/p>\n

Instead, the PlayBook uses a bridge application that links these features from a BlackBerry smartphone to the PlayBook. Without a link to a smartphone, these features disappear.<\/p>\n

However, RIM has promised to address many of these shortcomings “this summer” and demonstrated native e-mail, contacts and calendar applications for the PlayBook at BlackBerry World this week.<\/p>\n

BlackBerry PlayBook SA launch details emerge<\/strong><\/a> << Comments and views<\/p>\n

BlackBerry Playbook Image Gallery<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Jan Vermeulen is a guest of RIM South Africa at BlackBerry World. Follow Jan (@exxor) and\/or MyBroadband (@mybroadband) for live updates from the event (Wi-Fi permitting).<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MTN has given an idea of when the PlayBook can be expected in South Africa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gadgets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20028"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}