Cynthia Cheng Mintz

Since last year, Research in Motion has been teasing us with their impending launch of their tablet, Playbook.  The device has been on their website as a “coming soon” and has also made its trips in various tradeshows, including CES 2011 over the past few months.  What RIM HASN’T announced is the official launch date.  We consumers are a little tired of waiting and would LOVE TO KNOW WHEN!  The longer we wait, the longer this device is going to fall behind in terms of technology and savviness – this is very important to RIM as they have been criticized for falling behind.   Consumers are just going to gravitate towards other devices, such as the various Android tablets and the soon-to-be-announced iPad 2.  This would NOT be a good thing for RIM.  So RIM really needs to announce soon.  However, it doesn’t seem like it’s happening any time within the next few weeks (despite the fact that they’ve been hinting at a March release date). 

One thing I *DO* like about the Playbook is its size.  At 7 inches, the device is smaller than the iPad, and therefore a bit more portable.  Its sheer small size makes it easier to take around media events for note taking (as a small person, the more compact my media bag is, the better).  Sure, media people prefer Apple products (just because they’re “cooler”) and  Appleholics out there will disagree with me, but size is very important (really, people, isn’t it better to carry something smaller?  It looks less…messy and bulky)  However, for them, it’s the iPad and nothing but the iPad (not even Android).   While I am open to getting an iPad 2 (and only an iPad 2.  No interest in the current version whatsoever) or Android, I’d like to see how Playbook goes first.  However, the longer the wait, the more likely I’m going to gravitate towards something else.  Let’s hope that there’ll be some sort of announcement some time this month.