
Research in Motion (RIM) has announced a tablet.
The Blackberry Playbook might sport a dull name, but it at least it has not been called the Blackpad, which was one of the suggested ideas.
RIM said that it is designed to give users web browsing, multi-tasking and multi-media, security features, enterprise support and a development platform for IT departments and developers.
It has a 7-inch 1024×600 WSVGA LCD capacitive touchscreen with full multi-touch and gesture support, a 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, dual HD cameras with 3MP front facing and 5MP rear facing and it supports 1080p HD video recording. It uses the BlackBerry Tablet OS with support for symmetric multiprocessing.
It can manage 1080p HD Video, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV playback and the usual MP3, AAC, WMA. It has an HDMI video output, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR.
There are microHDMI and microUSB connections and it runs the Webkit browser with HTML-5, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile AIR, Adobe Reader, POSIX, OpenGL and Java.
RIM intends to also offer 3G and 4G models in the future. The PlayBook is expected to be available in retail outlets and other channels in the United States in early 2011 with rollouts in other international markets beginning in the second half of next year.
While that specifications are better than the Ipad now, if it hits the shops with those specifications RIM might find that the chip is a little out of date by the middle of next year.