Anyone out there who is looking for a god 7 inch tablet totally has to go for a playbook. Still can get it for 169 from currys and pc world. Not sure if the prices will rise again, but at this price, you guys gotta go snap it up.
I was also looking at the cheap as chips android tabs all over the net, amazon, ebay etc and truth is, their build quality and even user experience have nothing on the playbook. The playbook has the best build quality that I have seen on a tab, really is awesome. Stereo sound as well. The screen is buttery smooth and very sharp/colourful. Even with the lack of apps I am not disappointed in the slightest.
A few weeks on and it;s still a joy to use. Throw iplayer or any of the other on demand tv services at it, and it handles it all over a good wifi connection. If you have a smart phone with data that allows you to use it as a wifi hotspot, you can use the internet from the phone on the playbook. I tried it yesterday, took it out for the first time and tethered it with my desire hd, on three, unlimited data. Worked really well!! No nonsense, connected first time and off I went.
OS 2.0 is imminent. The 21st of Feb has been quoted by various sources so if true it could well drop by tomorrow. Already the app world is said to be populated with some 1500 Android apps and there are over 6000 developers on board too. So it fills me with hope that we will get a good selection of apps coming.
But as I said, even without the apps, there is plenty you can still do. The PB is not like an ipad where it cannot display flash sites and needs apps in order to get the site to get some functionality. The PB will just display everything out there as you see on your laptop or pc. I've never had any crashes or lagging, force closing issues yet. Many android OS builds still have issues in certain areas and will be more so apparent on a cheap Android tab.
My advice, go for the playbook, for a little more than the 110-120 pound cheap chinese tabs out there, you will get a solid product with the best OS on a tablet in terms of speed, reliability, security and all round performance.