Wherein We Pontificate About the Blackberry Playbook and Go Hands On

Techcitement recently questioned the relevance of RIM these days, and we’re not the only ones. RIM’s last quarterly earnings were quite lower than expected, and their stock dipped significantly. Although it appears to be climbing slowly now (but still  not anywhere near past prices), maybe because the lower stock is a good deal – I’m a technologist, not a stockbroker, so don’t ask me to help you understand.

In terms of tech,  we’re seeing RIM displaced to the number three smartphone platform, where upstarts like WebOS and WindowsPhone7 continue to challenged them. Even their hot new item, the Playbook, is not selling as well as expected, with poor reviews and roughly half a million in sales. This may have something to do with RIM’s decision to only have email and BBM only work on the Playbook if you have it connected to a Blackberry device. While I understand the push to create an experience where the user is entrenched in your ecosystem, RIM’s removing even the illusion of choice here was a mistake. Certainly companies like Apple want you to go from your iMac to your iPad to your iPhone, but they don’t lock basic functions down on one unless you have the other. Imagine if the Sony PSP phone would only allow you to play games if you had a PS3 in the room.

As for the Playbook itself, I have to confess as a WebOS user, my first instinct on seeing videos of the gesture-heavy, card-metaphor-using Playbook was “rassum frassum copybook!”. However, now that I’ve had my hands-on experience with the Playbook and the Touchpad (coming soon) I have to say that while RIM may not have been the first out of the gate with a gesture-heavy OS, they will be the only ones with it on a tablet. HP has removed the gesture area from the Touchpad, making the screen the focus (the gesture area remains on their phones though). RIM’s implementation basically makes it the only one on a tablet at the moment, as you can see in the video below.

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moblOQwT1Rs’]

Our hands-on time actually made me want to spend more time with the Touchpad, even though I don’t have any sort of Blackberry device. With assurances that the requirement of BB ownership will be removed via an upcoming update and the possibility of an Android emulation layer, I could see the Playbook as something with potential. The only question remaining is if RIM has missed their chance to win everyone’s hearts and minds.

Have they? Let us know in the comments.