Cheap Blackberry Playbook Gets Facelift
Last month, we reported that Blackberry’s 7 inch tablet device had been slashed in price, down from £399 to just £169.
This nifty little tablet is still on offer at that massively reduced price, and has just got even more attractive thanks to a free software upgrade.
Blackberry Playbook Summary
Rather than running the Apple iOS system, or using the increasingly popular Android OS, this uses Blackberry’s own interface and software, although as we’ll explain in a bit, the updated Playbook can now run Android apps too. Here’s the highlights of the Playbook Proposition:
- 7″ touchscreen
- Front and rear cameras
- Wi-fi and Bluetooth connectivity
- Available with 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of memory
- Micro USB
- HDMI Out, handy for presentations and not seen on other tablets
- GPS (location and sat nav)
- For gamers, there’s a built-in Gyroscope and Accelerometer
The Blackberry Playbook, at a knock-down price
Playbook OS2 Upgrade
On Tuesday the 21st of February, a free upgrade to version 2 of the tablet’s operating system was launched. Here’s a summary of what’s new:
- Dedicated e-mail, calendar, and contacts apps (oddly, missing from the first version)
- Better Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn integration
- An Amazon Kindle eBook App (although this was pulled shortly after release whilst a few bugs got ironed out)
- Support for Android applications with the Android Player.
The addition of support for Android apps is huge, and could make all the difference for the Playbook, although it’s important to note that not all Android apps are available. Developers have to make some tweaks to get the apps to run, and the Playbook-ised apps need to be approved by RIM before the can be added to the Blackberry App Store. Expect to see a large amount of new apps on their way now that OS2 is out.
If like the sound of the Playbook , then they’re still around at this awesome price – The 16GB is in stock online at Currys at the time of writing: Blackberry Playbook 16GB at Currys
