Best Buy and Staples offering big discounts on the BlackBerry PlayBook

It's not quite the crazy fire sale that HP offered, but this weekend it looks like you can find deals on the RIM BlackBerry PlayBook at Best Buy and Staples. HP dropped webOS hardware, but there are no indications that RIM is dropping the PlayBook. The new OS 7 devices seem to be doing pretty and with a significant PlayBook update coming soon, these deals on the PlayBook are pretty compelling. I bought a PlayBook on launch day and am no using it even more with my new Bold 9930.

Best Buy has a sale on now through Monday where you can get the 16GB model for $449 ($50 off) and the 32GB ($50 off) or 64 GB ($150 off) models for $549. There is also talk that Stapes will be offering 50% off the PlayBook on 7 and 8 September so you could get the 16GB for $249, 32GB for $299, and 64GB for $349. Keep in mind these Staples deals are just rumors still, but the Best Buy sale is going on now. I have a 32GB model that I paid $599.99 for so these are great deals.

I also noticed this past week that the Rapid Charger Dock was on sale for $34.99 (regularly $69.99) and picked one up for myself since I prefer charging my PlayBook up in this stand. The soft shell case is on sale too.

While these sales are great, they are not close-out fire sales and I think they are just holding these to move inventory and do not personally believe there is a new PlayBook coming anytime soon. The 7 inch form factor is great for the PlayBook and I hope RIM is just dedicating resources to the next update and not future larger form factor models.