Yeah I think they released it too early, but only did so because of the iPad 2 coming out - which doesn't seem very RIM to me.

Reminds me of the Storm - so desperate for a hip touch screen phone, that they did not mind releasing a total and utter piece of crap.

I think the Storm was probably a very bad move for them and this will be worse from what I am reading. I have a BB 9650. The only reason I have it is that it has a physical keyboard and I can work on mail offline (on a plane). That is a pretty tenuous set of reasons really. Other than that it leaves a LOT to be desired. The apps are expensive and suck for the most part. The browser makes me shake my head. The net is that it is forwarded to my iPhone and I virtually never use it. They need to sort themselves out or rename themselves Palm II.

To me, Blackberry was always strong in two things: push email and keyboards. Push email is no longer an issue as there are lots of other ways I can get that. A good keyboard won't be enough to keep them around. The time has come for them to totally rethink how they do business.

And then you have the corporate IT "Ivory Towers" that decree what we can and can't use. iPads are verboten. Hence a big splashy notice on the corporate intranet today about them evaluating the Playbook to determine whether or not the device might be useful within our corporate imbedded technology base.

Not holding my breath, because it will likely be so locked-down as to be useless.

I guess for me it's cost of running the thing that keeps me happy, that and Blackberry Messenger, its the cheapest solution. It only cost me £40 a year (~$80) on T-Mobile which I use just to be able to get my emails wherever whenever (I use Wifi when abroad) plus a tiny bit of internet use and I consider that a bargain. There's nothing that comes close to that figure on other phones in the UK

I agree the Storms are hideous and whoever thought that surepress was a winner should have CAT scan, asap.

I was in an Apple store yesterday and the 'Genius' in there was explaining the iPad 2 to a nice couple, of which the lady said she needed Flash as she uses a site for work that needs it. 'Genius' was very patient and explained that there was no Flash but there was a £6 app that might make her site work on the iPad as it didn't without the Flash when they tried it. She then mentioned they also definitely needed some sort of removable storage for his work (but I can't remember why) - 'Genius' said that 64gb was enough, so no joy there either.

In the end she said they would buy it anyway as it was an iPad, and so she would look cool. And said they could always give it to a relative and buy a 'proper' tablet when something better comes out. Only then does the Genius say 'ahh yes well we're currently out of stock'..............you can imagine how that went down.

That is a great bargain. But I dont know how usual that is. For me the running costs of a BB are higher than an iPhone if I was using BES and about the same as an iPhone with BIS on the BB. So no bargain at all.

Seriously, the way it shipped, is there anything else that can be removed from it?

I think my expectations were off on this one. I thought of it more as a stand alone device, and it appears that BlackBerry instead is thinking of it as a companion for people who have a blackberry and service. Looking at it that way, I can see where it has a place, though I believe they are totally missing the boat on the stand alone market.

I saw this an article about these comments a bit ago by the CEO of RIM.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...r-the-web.html

My first thought was, they're dead.

It is especially interesting since it really was Apple that brought the web and high data usage/access to the mobile phone market in a big way.

Yeah I worry that as T-mobile and Orange have merged over here the new company will merge tariffs and the price will go up. Cheapest monthly iPhone PAYG deal that I've found is 3 times the cost of the Blackberry one I've got, so not thinking of switching anytime soon.

It's not a matter or removal it's a matter of being so locked down that one cannot add apps. I can't even add Google Maps to my regular Blackberry without special permission from the Ivory Tower.

Did anyone buy a Playbook?
How does it connect to the net when paired with a BB on a BIS dataplan? Over BIS or do you have to set up an APN - I ask because my operator charges extra for data through the APN so I want to know if I can get 'free' Playbook data over BIS.
Also, do you get 3G through BIS or is it just 2G ie useless for web browsing.