The long awaited BlackBerry PlayBook is now available for pre-order, with expected stock in stores from April 19th, announced a few hours ago on the Best Buy website.
We discovered earlier in the month that the FCC had approved three models, a 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models in line with the iPad 2 range of models.
The PlayBook with Wi-Fi will be $499, $599 and $699 respectively.
The 7-inch 1024x600 display device will include a 1Ghz dual core processor, 1GB of RAM, and yet is only half an inch thick and under a pound in weight.
The PlayBook is designed for not only the consumer market, but primarily with the enterprise client in mind. For the life of me I cannot understand why a BlackBerry smartphone must be tethered to the PlayBook to access corporate emails, I do not know.
However, the PlayBook will support all the required enterprise-level security that currently exists on the BlackBerry smartphone, while selling as a powerful competitor to the iPad.
The PlayBook will include a 'personal mode' which allows a secure computing experience for personal use. It also includes BlackBerry Bridge which allows secure access to email and BlackBerry contentby tethering to your smartphone.
BlackBerry Balance, however, will allow users to bring work and personal content together on-screen in a unified and seamless setting, while maintaining security and keeping applications and work separate.
The Motorola Xoom and the iPad 2 both went on sale last month, and have larger screens than the PlayBook. Whether the PlayBook can compete with a lucrative tablet market so late in the game, we just have to hope that the BlackBerry following is as diverse and as strong as that of Apple's.
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