Picked one of these up on Saturday from Curry's. Absolutely superb piece of kit. Have sideloaded the Android apps I needed to plug the gaps in Rim's market, and have been loving every minute of using it.

Wonderful browser, and once you're over the initial learning curve, the UI is smooth and responsive. Definitely worth every penny of the ridiculously small price.

Could someone clarify for me - as I have read some contradictory reviews - can I use this as a stand alone tablet? What I mean is, I don't have a Blackberry phone (nor an iPhone).....so I assume I could use the Playbook to browse the web, but not much else?

I would really appreciate some information from someone who has one of these.

Many thanks in advance

Yes definitely. You can run apps, games (from the App World or sideloaded from your PC), browse the web, take pictures, record 1080p video and more. All independant of a Blackberry and iPhone

Thanks

What about email though? I know this was dependent on bridging with a phone - have they improved / got round this? I could presumably access hotmail?

Oh, and ebooks or Kindle?

Yes, its got its own email program. It comes with Kobo reader for ebooks, but you can install the kindle app if you prefer.

It works like any other tablet, it's not Android but will run many Android apps through sideloading which is dead easy to do.

You don't need to use a Blackberry phone with the tablet, if anyone tells you otherwise they're talking nonsense (the early OS did but the tablets come with V2 on so it works as a standalone device)

Thanks for your help guys. I'll be at PC World tomorrow to see if they have any left

You can always check stock online first

When I bought time the online price was lower than the store price, even though you only paid the online price if you reserved it online. Don't know if that is still the case, but check just in case.

I think at the moment they are the same - at least they were last week - but, yes I'd always recommend doing that check.

Have reserved online and will collect from store later today ....exciting!!

No doubt they'll try to sell me all kinds of other things, but that would kind of defeat the object....

Thanks for your help guys

If it is like my Currys - excpet for the usual extra warranty they didn't say a thing

With Android they always try to sell Trend Micro Anti-virus

Nothing like putting people off...

i have seen things about sideloaded Apps from pc but how can i do this?

im looking to have the tunein app on my playbook so if anyone can help me with how to do it please.

Had one for a week and returned it yesteday.
Its a great little tablet and feels well built, great price and worked well with my blackberry phone.....but why did I return it.
Well it has a stupid and ill thought out charging process...
I let it completly discharge by accident and it wouldnt recharge..thought this was odd and maybe I had a faulty tablet.
Looked online and its a known issue, the charging process is software based so you need a little less than 1% battery life to make it work.
Because of this happening in my first week of ownership, and the crazy tips to allow the battery to get upto the required charge, (plug charger in and out for upto 30 times) I got rid of it and went for another Galaxy Tab 2 7"
Shame really, apart from that I was very impressed.

http://www.blackberryforums.com/blac...tely-dead.html

http://n4bb.com/side-load-android-ap...erry-playbook/

I have had a 64gb Playbook for a week and I'm well impressed by its build quality and facilities. The OS is very smooth and I've been able to side-load many useful apps.

I need some advice, however. I would like internet access on the move and I'm interested in tethering it with a phone. Am I correct in assuming that any cheap Bluetooth enabled phone would fit the bill together with SIM plan that has a data allowance?

Get a cheap Android phone and use the portable wifi hotspot facility built in.

If you get a T-mobile PAYG phone they charge just £20 for 6 months internet access, hotspot tethering works just fine.

I have an old T-Mobile Vivacity which I top up and use and I also use my current phone as well.

The other option would be to buy a mifi unit but most of those require you to top up each month. What I like about the T-Mobile deal is so long as you're not going crazy it's better than buying a monthly plan on PAYG.

Use t-mobile mifi with my PlayBook when out and about. Works great.

For out and about if u have a blackberry phone you can bridge and it let's you online I only found this out due to having no broadband due to changing companies and remembered my son blackberry is a payg three 15 all in one so he gets unlimited data so I'm online using that

I am really interested, but I have a few questions. It would have to be my main tablet, so it would have to cover me for surfing, email, productivity and some ap experience. I would also like to have some tv offline on there. Can I download programes from BBC I Player directly, or can I easily transfer these from my laptop onto it. I am not technical and don't know how to get dvds onto a lap top even, so it really would be a learning curve. I have an android phone and gmail. Would I be generally better with an android device and is there any hope for me to learn these things?!! P.s, I did own an android tablet for a short while but sent it back due to the screen resolution. But I loved owning a tablet. Any ideas?

I don't think there is an android app at the moment for iplayer that allows downloading of shows and viewing off-line and I don't think you can transfer from laptop either.


None copy protected DVD can easily be copied by a variety of programs on the laptop. personally I use freemake video converter which only takes a few clicks to convert to MP4

To be honest with you if you don't have much in the way of technical understanding and don't understand the contraints of the PlayBook I would recommend the Google Nexus 7 for you so that you still have Android and so don't have to re-learn things again.

The only thing putting me off the Nexus is the storage space. 8GB really isn't enough for a multmedia tablet and 16GB isn't much better.

Apparently, it only costs Google $7.50 more to make the 16GB model but they sell it for $50 more: http://www.zdnet.com/why-a-32gb-nexu...le-7000001365/

For the moment, I'm happy with my Playbook. I'll take another look at the Nexus when the second version is.

Made a comment to a colleague this morning (we were discussing new company mobiles, being given a choice of Android, BB, iPhone or WP devices). None of these are difficult to use, and they all have very similar interfaces.

There is virtually no learning curve on these things, and after having the Vega for a year (on CFW) and recently buying the Playbook, I find the Playbook considerably easier to use.

Android always seems to need some tinkering to get it work, whereas the playbook just works (and it works well), the interface is more natural, and the Playbook is definitely one of the best built tablets on the market (I'd even be tempted to say its the best built).