BlackBerry Playbook To Enter UK On 16 June

UK phone retailers have today announced they will be stocking Research In Motion (RIM)’s highly anticipated BlackBerry Playbook when it launches in the country on 16 June.

The availability will be widespread, with Dixons Retail, owner of Currys and PC World, Carphone Warehouse, Insight UK and Phones 4u leading the team. Customers can choose from three different models, depending on the tablet’s onboard memory, which ranges from 16GB (£399) to 32GB (£479) and 64GB (£559).

The Playbook slate is now available for pre-order at Phones 4U, Insight and Carphone Warehouse, with a mid-June delivery expected.

The Playbook for business

According to RIM, the Playbook is built for business, offering “out-of-the-box compatibility with BlackBerry Enterprise server”, corporate data access, and “seamless pairing for a secure window into your BlackBerry smartphone,”.

Despite RIM’s determination to beat Apple’s iPad 2, its forthcoming tablet reportedly has battery problems, which is believed to have delayed its launch until the second quarter of 2011.

According to a company representative, users of the PlayBook cannot expect to spend more than four hours using the device, compared to 6 hours for the Samsung Galaxy Tab and 10 hours for the iPad.

In a bid to grab a slice in the tablet market, however, the manufacturer has added several new additions to its slate, including Video Chat and a Facebook app. Still, the number of apps for RIM’s BlackBerry Playbook is nothing compared to Apple’s and Google‘s, making it unlikely for the gadget to become an iPad killer as RIM has hoped.

Along with its recall of nearly 1,000 faulty tablets recentl, many analysts put the Playbook at the back of the tablet race.

Specifications

RIM’s BlackBerry Playbook features a 7-inch multi-touch capacitive screen display, with a resolution of 1024 x 600, a 3-megapixel HD front-facing camera and a 5-megapixel HD rear model.

It also comes with a 1GHz dual-core processor, a 1GB RAM, and micro USB as well as micro HDMI ports.

The tablet weighs 425 grams and measures 10mm thick.