BLACKBERRY PlayBook Tablet PC - 64 GB £129 @ Currys

retrend

im confused as to why this is hot

Deals are marked by people as hot when they are lower priced than elsewhere, or lower priced than at an earlier time. It usually means they are viewed as a good deal. Conversely, deals that are "cold" are generally a poor deal. I hope this helps with the confusion.

ChampionshipManager

Not an iPad.

Thanks for that .... 58 hours, 30 pages and 1800 degrees later - you feel compelled to bestow your far superior knowledge upon us mortals ... Did you look it up on Wikipedia? Next youll be telling us that a Haddock isnt a sex toy .... (then again ...)


(edited)

The only thing that can save this is an Android ICS port.

Whenever there is a Playbook deal some always come up with silly comments donouncing it to the level of junk. Have any of you actually used one over a period of time? At £129 for 64GB it's a no brainer, got be the the best deal in tablets yet.
This is better piece of hardware than Nexus 7 in every respect barring the so-called quad-core processor in the nexus. But how many application have been developed so far to squeeze the power of a quad core?
Playbook screen has lower resolution than nexus 7 but has much better colour, brightness and contrast.
Both being 7 inch, Playbook screen doesn't waste screen real estate like Nexus 7 (the stupid soft keys and notification bar of android eats up into the screen space)
Build quality is way better than nexus.
It has the best stereo speakers of any tablets I've seen so far (quite a few I own) and the speaker placement in the front is great
BBOS is much more fluid and intuitive than Android. Every task is performed with just a swipe rather than digging to find options buried in the menu.
It plays majority of the music and video formats
Supports flash and the native browser is very good
Has a good quality back camera (records HV video) and also has HDMI in case you prefer to connect to a HDTV (Nexus 7 lacks both)
Where it suffers (against android) is obviously in the apps front. There are plenty of good gamess available though (Gameloft games cost £1).
7 inch form factor is portable and best for playing games (also good for ebook/comics reading, listening to music or watching movies alone, 10 inch is better for web browsing)
It's a no brainer at the price just for playing media, reading books, web browsing, and storing your films/music/documents (if not for anything else).

Just finished my shift at PCW, we had a right twonk in this afternoon .. wanted our LAST 64GB Blackberry Playbook, told him they were rubbish and to get a Sammy or Google Nexus, the muppet bought it, and so did I!

[Sent from MY Blackberry Playbook]

Does the Ainol Fire come from Currys ?

There really are some fools on this thread. Purchasing PB's, having a 'play' around and then returning it to Currys for some other poor soul to purchase. As for listening to 'Techie staff' giving advise in store - they haven't got a clue either, so don't even bother. Do your research beforehand and don't just buy on the cheap thinking that you're gonna get a Ferrari for the price of a Skoda.
Are there really so many sheep on HUKD? It's simple, do you need one......NO (move on). If YES......does it do what I want - NO (move on). If it does tick the boxes - read some reviews.

The PB bombed - yes and was heavily reduced earlier this year (apart from the 64gb model). It's basically a very good 'Media Player' with fast web browsing capabilities. Limited apps yes, but if you know what your doing you can get round this and who actually uses half the 'gimic' apps that people seem to be missing.

I know what my PB is good at and use it for those purposes. As mentioned numerous times it's well built, has a massive amount of storage for a tablet in this price range, has a great screen and is perfect as a travel companion for movies and odd games (fantastic to keep the kids quiet).

If your after a tablet that can do everything, save up and get an iPad - you cant compare the two. If you want something smaller, far cheaper and of good quality (unlike the HTC flyer which fell apart)........as a web browsing tablet first and foremost, the PB could fill your requirements. I've used loads of tablets and currently have a new iPad for all my work and media needs, BUT if Im going away or out for the day I'll just grab the PB. At £129 it's cheaper than the Nexus, which obviously does deserves serious consideration, although at £70 more and with less memory this may be an issue for some.

Best advice - don't panic buy, do some research and go instore to try one out.

ather7851

has anyone received any extra's with playbook?

What sort of extras? Like when you go for a massage? The girl in Currys wasn't even interested in giving me an extra warranty. I think anything else was definitely out of the question!

Jamidoughnutfig

Feel sorry for those who have used their Playbooks. Ouch.

I feel sorry for people who post nonsense like this.

See here for the Chrome extension to sideload Android apps:

Link

Alternative method (DDPB) here:

Link

The only ones I really use are ES File Explorer and Kindle. ES File Explorer allows you to "pull" files from your home network devices on to the Playbook rather than "push" from a local PC. It also allows streaming of Music and Video from local PCs/NAS. To be honest with these two apps the Playbook is a pretty complete unit for me. Simple charging (micro USB) and simple HDMI connection (mico HDMI) too (compared to my Samsung tab which is a bit of a kerfuffle in these respects).

Some apps to sideload here (including the two above):

Link

As stated if you want tons of apps as per Android its not for you, but for normal home web and multimedia use it is a winner.
(edited)

Well i just want to give a big thank you to the original poster, and all the great info others have posted about side loading and sites for apps and tutorials for the Playbook.

I have been thinking about the Nexus 7 as an aid for me use in my work and play, but having done some research the playbook fills all my needs + some other cracking apps make it the one for me. I have read all to date 34 pages on this posting and it has really helped, as others have said it not a Ipad or any other top of the range Tablet, but for the price it is a doosy.

I have been considering not using HUKD any more due to some of the really negative and malicious posts. Due this post i have reconsidered. Thanking most of you.

imsofly

Yeh, get a tablet (an iPad?) which has a decent app store where you can … Yeh, get a tablet (an iPad?) which has a decent app store where you can get rubbish games like solitaire.Read lessRead more

Give me a like if you think this apple fanboy is beyond annoying now! Thankfully the school holidays end soon!

REAL_DEAL

just ordered 3 for prezzies

You sound a nice person, can I be your friend?

MrRee

And so it starts .... the complaints, the returns, the feeling of … And so it starts .... the complaints, the returns, the feeling of helplessness as it dawns on you that you have been taken in by the 'Fever'.If the seller, themselves, are not recommending the product then that should be a bigger warning than those I have been giving!!STOP, think, and forget it .... buy something 500% better for an extra 100%!!Read lessRead more

You know i think you are just jealous for 'whatever reason it is' about this price. Seems like you have an expensive tablet and you are trying to justify the money you spent by making yourself feel good. Which i think is the reason you are trolling this thread (feeling remorse?). Keep your opinion to yourselves. Or better still make a review of the product voicing your reasons and don't just say don't buy it.

Snugg Blackberry Playbook Squared Skinny Fit Protective Case Cover in Black is back in stock at Amazon for 99p

amazon.co.uk/gp/…-21

fitjon1969

Just been in PC world to buy one... The salesman talked me out if it... … Just been in PC world to buy one... The salesman talked me out if it... He said they are useless that's why they are reduced so much... He said save your money.. Better off with a Samsung or google nexusRead lessRead more

Not sure which one is the most stupid, you or the PC world chap lol

imsofly

iPad is the best

Despite your eloquent and well argued point I am struggling to be convinced. Especially if you were using an iPad to post your thoughts as it appears to have taken you 2 attempts to get those 4 words out to the world.

A friend wants to know if this would be suitable for her 15 year old daughter, or will the lack of apps make her a social outcast & possibly ruin her life.

At this price, I'm actually kind-of tempted to buy this, which is strange coz it's a Blackberry Playbook

just ordered one of these to go with it

"Deluxe Black Leather Case Cover For BlackBerry Playbook" £3.95+postage from Amazon

I don't know why all these Tablets at cheap prices get so much heat ...... everyone is clearing stock - hold out a few months and your eyes will water with the deals available around Xmas!!
(edited)

Just got mine, updated software, put some films on, loaded it with holiday snaps etc.........

For this price this is a bargain, it may not be an Ipad 2 but.......

A great family device, superb value for money, I am over the moon with mine!!!!!!

Stop thinking about it and just buy one, I would be shocked if you are disappointed with this tablet at £129.

(edited)

horstachio

Tempting (I got one a while ago with the currys quidco offer), got rid of … Tempting (I got one a while ago with the currys quidco offer), got rid of it as found it useless.WIll pass :PRead lessRead more

What is your definition of useless? Reading this thread it seems to me if you want an excellent video player and internet browser then this is ideal. Not how I would define useless anyway.

It seems to me there are many trolls on here working for other parties. I advise you all to read the independent reviews on this tablet. Try Amazon for starters.

This website is fast becoming a farce

I really don't understand why people feel the need to stop others from buying simply because they don't like it. If you think it is rubbish that does not mean everyone else should take it as rubbish. I bought it earlier when it was £169 for 16GB and it was the most useless device i had ever bought. 2 weeks later i sold it and i made a loss in the process, but then i was coming from an ipad 2 so you understand. I bought it again at this price yesterday because i thought you can't go wrong for a 64gb tablet at £129. I turned it on, updated it and played around and i just can't seem to drop it now. There has been a huge improvement since the last time i bought it, it is much more better. Now believe this or not i currently have a Nexus 7 tablet and the Motorolo Xoom 2 for £149 at carphone warehouse. I can safely tell you that the Xoom 2 is now the most useless device i ever bought and the Nexus 7 has been packed for sale, Xoom 2 is going back to CPW. The way the playbook handled videos is just too sweet, for example on youtube, if you go fullscreen, both the xoom 2 and nexus 7 will show loading before it continues playing the video; the playbook is instant. If you then back out from fullscreen, OH MY GOD! the Xoom takes forever to load again before it carries on playing, same with Nexus 7 but does not take as long, again Playbook is instant. This happens with other video website i use including the youtube app. There should be no delay when going from normal screen to fullscreen or vice versa, i guess still an issue with Android itself. Sometimes i can't even play the video anymore when i go back to normal screen because the browser freezes.

Even though Nexus 7 has 4 QUAD CORE, damn! it is still not as smooth as the playbook and i don't give a toss about apps, 70% of my tablet use is internet browsing, 20% email, remaining 10% is spent on apps. And all the apps i use mostly on android have been converted for the playbook and it works including the youtube app, ebay app, mobo video player, act 1 video player and dailymotion app. There is also a google map app but have not tried.

Internet browsing? playbook pwns Nexus 7 and Xoom 2, it is much more smoother and it is yet to freeze on me
Email? Tie
Gneral use? Playbook for me

I'm not saying android tablets are rubbish but in my opinion they are not better then the playbook with the current update. Playbook with OS1.xxxxxxx is complete rubbish but with OS 2.xxxxx it is very nice. If you are still judging it based on 1.xxxxxx you are missing a lot, trust me.

bazza1603

Would people recommend this for a 4 year old. She has a leappad at the … Would people recommend this for a 4 year old. She has a leappad at the moment and loves thatRead lessRead more

Wooden building blocks and a teddy bear might be cheaper. Didn't do me a lot of harm in the long term!

scott148

piece of carp,mines going back.

sounds a bit fishy !?

Bit the bullet & got one
1st impression - its awesome. took about 20 mins to get on it as it downloaded new OS & did updates. good enough for me
quality build, terrific sound, great picture which is bright & clear.
Multitasking is stunningly good as its clever & intuitive. Cracker.
I played a 1080p vid which is pre-installed & it looked staggeringly good!! I streamed a 720p vid of YouTube flawlessly & my football streams worked perfect (via flash)
I have a few other plans for it....looks a great bit of kit.
right - gotta sell that raspberry pi (which i CBA with)

meggie_dude

Everyone's entitled to their opinion. RIM Playbook OS develpment is a bit … Everyone's entitled to their opinion. RIM Playbook OS develpment is a bit like the WebOS development for the touchpad. No great leaps made there, which is why most bought and then loaded CM7 or CM9There's no doubt this is a competitive price on the surface, but I can't see that RIM will release much more for it in the future while the likes of the Dixon group are heavily discounting them. They've got to be losing money on each unit. So why develop for a platform that won't sell.If they opened up the firmware/bootloader so that other OS's could be installed they'd stand a much better chance of selling these at a higher price. As it is they are so locked down that not an option.Read lessRead more

Well you are wrong if you think this is the same situation as WebOS. With the Touchpad and WebOS, HP confirmed they were just getting rid of the business because they knew it wasn't going to work, and hence all development for WebOS stopped.

The PB is a different story, as RIM has no intention of going out of the tablet business. I am a PB developer, and RIM is pushing developers hard to create apps for the PB. They even offer a $10,000 profit guarantee for developers (tell me another company that does that!). BB10 has been confirmed for the PB as well which means it will be up to date for at least another generation.

Remember RIM still has a lot of phone users out there, and the App World for phones is much bigger than for the PB. The problem is the phones and the tablet use a different OS, hence developers are reluctant to create apps just for the small minority of tablet users. This will all change when BB10 will be introduced for phones and tablets. Take for example Spotify, available for BB phones but not the PB. Needless to say BB10 is RIM's last shot at the market, if it doesn't succeed then the company will probably collapse.

Just got one of these today - what a lovely piece of kit. Well built, very slick, gorgeous & responsive OS (after the upgrade to 2.0), oodles of storage on this 64gb version, beautiful screen. At this price, it's a steal.

capriboycraig

-OS takes some getting used to after Android (mostly i've been using ICS, … -OS takes some getting used to after Android (mostly i've been using ICS, mostly) - subjectively I prefer ICS UI atm - -Read lessRead more

Give it some time, any new software will feel unfamiliar and worse than the one you are usgin everyday now. BBOS is more fluid than ICS.

If you haven't figured it out yet some swipe gestures are:
Swipe from any bezel to oppostive bezel wakes up Playbook (no need to turn it off, just keep in standby, power consupmtion in standby is low)
Swipe up from bottom bezel minimises the active application to its window, touch the app and swipe up to close it.
Swipe from bottom left corner brings up the keyboard anytime (even inside any application)
When multiple apps running swipe from left or right to move between apps
Inside an app swipe from top bezel down will open the app menu but swipe from top left or right corner will open the playbook menu (no need to get out of the app to change any device setting)
Swipe from bottom to left bezel to go back within an app

There are many such swipe gestures to do everything making the operation very fluid and user friendly

shepster34

Soooo tempted. I have a hannspad tablet which is great but i have … Soooo tempted. I have a hannspad tablet which is great but i have problems with hibernation so cant leave it on standby overnight as it just crashes. Thinking this would be great to have in the kitchen as an mp3 player and internet radio (assuming theres an app) or a quick email checker and also to slip into the pocket on long journeys for video. Has anyone used this to bluetooth music to a bluetooth speaker?Can anyone tell me how long the battery lasts when on standby? Would it last a full day or 2??ThanksRead lessRead more

One tip which I dont think has been mentioned.

It is very important that under WIFI setting you change network to "saved networks" as opposed to "available networks"

If you keep it on "available networks" you playbook scans the WIFI networks in standby mode and drops battery life considerably. (lasts a couple of days)

If you have it in "saved networks" instead, it no longer scans and your battery life increases substantially (using about 15% a day).

Well - I've had mine for a day now (been constantly using it) and have to say I'm extremely impressed with it. This thing is absolutely brilliant and has far exceeded my expectations.

After seeing mine, the wife also ended up buying one aswell(!). This thing is just so cool.

It's such a nice piece of kit - well built, excellent screen, excellent speakers and so fast and smooth at doing everything. It's an absolute joy to use and I find it perfectly sized too (which I wasn't expecting). This thing definitely wasn't engineered by an accountant - everything about it oozes quality. I'm loving it so far and haven't even scratched the surface really with the apps available for it - there are plenty of apps from what I've seen.

Blackberry haven't marketed this thing anywhere near enough - if they did, it would be selling like mad as it's a superb device. I personally knew absolutely nothing about the Blackberry Playbook until I had read this thread and most people I know would say the same thing - the lack of marketing for such an amazing product is shocking.

After using it and seeing what it can do, I would say it should be selling for at least £250 or more. Blackberry really deserve some kudos for this device - the multitasking side of it is almost unbelievable - how it runs everything simultaneously so smoothly and effortlessly (and even without using much battery power?) is beyond me. It's an extremely well designed product.

It's laughable that something as good as this is having to be heavily discounted and cleared from shelves and that the company is struggling. Whoever is in charge of UK marketing for Blackberry should be sacked. If anyone is still in two minds about getting one, don't wait - it really is a fantastic device.

Because he wanted to be really clever on the internet. Sadly but predictably he has come across as yet another iSheep/Fandroid. I would put money on the fact that he never bought a Playbook in the first place. F'ing moron

Jamidoughnutfig

My unused playbook 64gb is going back. Absolute piece of ... Compared to … My unused playbook 64gb is going back. Absolute piece of ... Compared to the new kindle fire at 129, but more so for ne stunning hd version at 159. Read lessRead more

Your trying to compare something you haven't even used, by your own admission, with something else you haven't used, and have the nerve to criticise one of them by calling it "Absolute piece of ...".

Do Amazon pay you enough to waste your time posting stuff that makes you look silly to thousands of people?

For anyone wanting to convert their large mkv files, into smaller mp4 files to fit the pixel size of the playbook, ive been getting great success with the free converter called handbrake. (ive seen it also mentioned here by other people on this thread many times too)
If you plan on watching movies through hdmi to your tv then i wouldnt use this guide as it reencodes to 1024*600 which may not look too good on a 50 inch plasma. If you just want to watch the movie on a train or whatever and want a much smaller filesize it works great.

here is the link to handbrake if anyone wants it.

download.cnet.com/Han…tml

here is a guide using handbrake for the galaxy tab but this has the same screen and pixel size so works the same as the playbook. Its a guide to an old version of handbrake but you can see the same buttons.

knowyourcell.com/sam…tml

The guide is great, one important point i found was to convert the audio to AAC(flac) not mp3. AAC works fine on the playbook and mp3 did some strange things to the frame rate for some reason. And i also check keep constant frame rate box.

Using this guide my mp4's come out at around 1gb (depending on length of movie).

The guide doesnt touch on cropping a movie.
You would only need to crop if you dont want black bars on the top and bottom of a movie which is in 2.35:1 widescreen format. If you dont mind the black bars just use the guide for all movies irrespective of aspect ratio. The downside to cropping is you need to crop the left and right edges off the movie to make it fill the screen. Ive had very good success with cropping these format of movies and feel that due to only having a 7 inch screen, the extra pixels i get through cropping outweigh the loss from cutting the sides off. This is where movie buffs shoot me down for altering the original aspect ratio and losing the feel of the movie, but on a 7 inch screen i say its ok to be done.

Remember the actual aspect ratio of the playbook is 1.7066:1 so calculate what needs to be cropped from each side so the movie is in that aspect ratio and you will have a full 1024 x 600 movie.

hope this helps, if not sorry for the long post





(edited)

Bargain.

I love my playbook.

Only feature I miss is Skype.

This would've been a good deal before the Nexus 7, but now.. why would anyone buy this?

Let's face facts .... they are only selling these things cheap as no-one wants them ..... without Forums like this (HUKD is great by the way!!) I doubt they would even sell the last of their stocks.

Taksim_Red

Obviously this does depend on stock levels, and once its gone its gone … Obviously this does depend on stock levels, and once its gone its gone I'll give you that, but across the board with the way prices are tumbling at the moment it really does make sense to hold out until post Xmas. Moreso than any other goods I can think of atm.That's going to be the sweat spot for me. So glad I returned the £117 Advent Vega I bought at Easter.Read lessRead more

Show me any device with 64GB at this price, then I'd agree, there's is no comparison with an 8 or 16GB android tablet from China. Even with an SD card, you don't get to that magic 64GB, it was a good deal at £249, at this price it's insane. Prices are only tumbling in the generic android market, and then for the low end devices.

Once Windows 8 tablets are out, we can re-evaluate, but anyone thinking they're going to get a well made, reliable tablet with 64GB for less than this before Christmas, needs to stop smoking whatever they are, and face the real world.

mike