RIM BlackBerry 4G PlayBook tablet gets public preview

6 Jan 2011

The BlackBerry 4G PlayBook will feature connectivity to the Sprint 4G network with wide area wireless connectivity, aiming to provide download speeds up to 10 times faster than 3G1. It’s being previewed this week at CES.

The new 4G model is expected to be available from Sprint in the summer. Yesterday, CES attendees were treated to a demonstration of the device, which will enter a duel with the Apple iPad upon its release this year.

According to RIM, the BlackBerry 4G PlayBook is set to redefine the possibilities of mobile computing.

“RIM believes a significant portion of the tablet market will want a higher performing, multitasking, professional-grade tablet and that is why we chose to design the BlackBerry PlayBook for premium performance with a powerful dual-core processor and multitasking OS. Together with Sprint, we are now building on that performance advantage with 4G and providing an unparallelled mobile experience for users,” said Mike Lazaridis, president and co-CEO at Research In Motion. 

The BlackBerry 4G PlayBook features:

  • Wi-Fi support, a 1 GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and the new BlackBerry Tablet OS.
  • 7-inch 1,024×600 WSVGA capacitive LCD touchscreen
  • Weight: 0.9lbs
  • MP3, AAC and WMA audio playback
  • Support for 1,080p HD video playback (H.264, MPEG4, WMV)
  • Dual HD cameras for video conferencing and video capture
  •  Up to 64 GB internal storage (16, 32 and 64 GB models)

The ultra-thin tablet will also support for Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile AIR and HTML-5 at 4G speeds.

Additional details and pricing will be released closer to the launch.

Sprint 4G is available in 71 markets across the US, including Atlanta, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and New York City.

Sprint first launched 4G in Baltimore in 2008.

Carmel Doyle was a long-time reporter with Silicon Republic

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