RIM PlayBook Hits British Shops

Research in Motion (RIM) launched its PlayBook tablet in the UK on Thursday, following an early release at Selfridges in London on Wednesday.

The tablet is billed as a competitor for Apple’s popular iPad, but critics have noted that it is relatively expensive and doesn’t include a native email application.

O2 not impressed

Operator O2 UK told customers it would “not be selling the device” due to “some issues with the end to end customer experience”, according to gadget website Engadget.

The PlayBook will sell at £399 for the 16GB version, £479 for the 32GB model and £559 for the 64GB edition. It goes on sale Thursday from retailers including Best Buy, Dixons, Currys, Carphone Warehouse and Phones4u.

The tablet has a seven-inch screen, compared to the iPad’s 9.7 inches, but has the same screen resolution as the iPad. The device has dual cameras that can record HD footage at 1080p.

QNX

It uses RIM’s tablet operating system, QNX, meaning the user experience and management techniques will be different from BlackBerry smartphones. RIM is planning to shift all its BlackBerry devices to QNX OS next year.

The tablet can run PlayBook applications, as well as applications written for BlackBerry smartphones and Google’s Android platform.

It uses a dual-core 1GHz processor, and features multitasking and Adobe Flash support.

The lack of a built-in email application means the device must be used in conjunction with a BlackBerry smartphone for email access, industry observers noted. Email is expected in an OS update this year.

Failure predicted

Gartner has predicted the Playbook will struggle against its Android and iOS brethren in the next five years.

So said the analyst house in its April forecast, “Media Tablets by Open Operating System: 2010 to 2015”, which looks at which tablet operating systems will rule the roost for the foreseeable future. Gartner predicted that “Apple’s iOS will continue to own the majority of the worldwide media tablet through 2015”.

Thanks to the success of the iPad, Gartner predicts iOS will account for 69 percent of media tablet OSs in 2011, but by 2015 its market share will decline to 47 percent.

Apple’s main competition will come from Android-based rivals, with Android predicted to have a 19.9 percent tablet market share figure in 2011, rising to 38.6 percent in 2015. Gartner also thinks that WebOS will have a 3 percent market share in 2015, whereas MeeGo will have a 1 percent market share.

Gartner predicts that QNX will achieve only a 5.6 percent market share in 2011, which will rise to 10 percent in 2015, well behind the likes of Android and iOS.