RIM unveils a tablet:The BlackBerry PlayBook.

Looks like all those

blackberry playbook

rumors about BlackBerry

maker Research in

Motion coming out with

its own tablet were true

— well, everything
except for the name.
Instead of the
"BlackPad" (ugh), RIM is
calling its 7-inch,
camera-packing tablet
the BlackBerry PlayBook.
CEO Mike Lazaridis
showed off the long-
rumored device during
the keynote of RIM ’s
BlackBerry developer
conference in San
Francisco on Monday.
RIM says its new tablet
will arrive in the U.S. in
early 2011, and in
overseas markets in the
second quarter of next
year. No pricing details
yet.
Expect a 0.9-pound
tablet that ’s 9.7mm (or
0.4 inch) thick, complete
with (as rumored) a pair
of cameras: a 5-
megapixel camera in the
back, and a 3MP lens in
front, both capable of
recording HD video —
nice.
The 7-inch display —
the same size as that on
the just-announced
Samsung Galaxy Tab —
will boast a resolution of
1024 by 600, and yes,
it ’s a capacitive
multitouch display,
good for such multi-
finger gestures as
punching and zooming.
The "no-compromises"
PlayBook will run on a
new tablet OS designed
by QNX Software
Systems, which RIM
acquired back in April,
and it’ll be powered by a
1GHz dual-core
processor, complete
with a whopping 1GB of
onboard RAM
(compared with just
256MB for the iPad).
The PlayBook will also
support multitasking
and Flash (think Flash
Player 10.1), by the way,
as well as multimedia-
friendly HTML5 Web
standards.
As far as data: The
PlayBook will arrive with
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
support, with both 3G
and 4G (yep, 4G)
versions coming "in the
future," according to
RIM. The PlayBook will
also connect to a nearby
BlackBerry via Bluetooth
for viewing e-mail,
calendar, to-do items or
contacts — meaning,
presumably, that you’ll
be able to tap out
messages on the
PlayBook and fire them
off from your handheld
BlackBerry.
We can also expect
"nonproprietary"
microUSB and micro-
HDMI ports, with the
PlayBook capable of
outputting full-on 1080p
video via HDMI, RIM
says.
A slick promo video for
the PlayBook shows
features such as tabbed
browsing, an app task
bar, threaded
messaging, on-the-Web
YouTube video, and
tablet-sized e-mail and
event interfaces — all
very iPad-like, with the
added twist of the
PlayBook acting as a
BlackBerry companion
(or the BlackBerry
"amplified," as RIM puts
it) in addition to a
stand-alone slate:
All very interesting, but
we ’ll have to wait for
more details on the
BlackBerry PlayBook (not
to mention its new,
QNX-build OS) until
some point "on or
before" the tablet ’s
launch date — which, of
course, we don’t really
know yet.