RIM Responds To PlayBook Battery Life Issue

Research In Motion has moved quickly to respond to reports that its BlackBerry PlayBook still has some battery issues to work out.

The reports followed from a 28 December research note from Kaufman Bros., analyst Shaw Wu.

“One… issue we hear the PlayBook needs to improve is its relatively poor battery life of a few hours, compared to 6 hours for the Samsung Galaxy Tab and 20 hours for the iPad,” Wu wrote, adding that the issue could require some additional engineering and likely be why RIM has pushed out its launch to the second quarter of 2011.

Power Management

Not exactly denying that RIM is working on the performance of the PlayBooks battery, as much as saying it’s on top of the matter, RIM Media Relations responded:

“Any testing or observation of battery life to date by anyone outside of RIM would have been performed using pre-beta units that were built without power management implemented. RIM is on track with its schedule to optimise the BlackBerry PlayBook’s battery life and looks forward to providing customers with a professional grade tablet that offers superior performance with comparable battery life.”

RIM introduced the PlayBook at its annual DevCon conference in September. Featuring a 7-inch display, running an OS based on QNX technology, and offering WiFi and 3G connectivity via a BlackBerry smartphone, RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis called it the industry’s first enterprise-ready tablet. And while its enterprise bent does set it apart a bit in the increasingly crowded tablet market, the PlayBook’s main competitor will nonetheless be the Apple iPad, the holder more than 90 percent of the worlds tablet market share.

While some iPad testers run hotter and cooler than others, a feature that few quibble with is its lengthy battery life. The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg, testing the iPad for the paper, found the iPad’s battery to actually outlast even Apples estimate for it by more than an hour.

Tough Road Ahead

In his research note, Wu additionally told investors that his firm expects RIM to sell approximately 700,000 PlayBooks in 2011, despite other published estimates coming in between 1 million and 8 million units.

As we have said before, wrote Wu, we are not convinced that tablets outside of the iPad will see high volume success.

In a 29 December report, DisplaySearch Analyst Richard Shim described the iPads success as owing to the combination of its strong hardware, operating system and vast application ecosystem adding that Apple hardly started from square one with the iPad, as Apple CEO Steve Jobs has also said, in so many words, but with the iPad leverages the successes of the iPhone.

“We believe that the main competitors to the iPad,” wrote Shim, “will be the ones investing in a unique experience.”