Fascinating Look Back at BlackBerry’s PlayBook, the Compact Tablet From 2011 That Had Real Promise

BlackBerry entered the tablet market in the spring of 2011 with the PlayBook, a 7-inch tablet that had to compete with larger offerings from Apple and others. People who picked one up quickly noticed how portable it was, fitting easily into a bag or coat pocket for on-the-go use.

Build quality was impressive for the time, with the PlayBook coming in at just under 10mm thick and 425 grams. The clean combination of black plastic and metal felt solid and considered without trying too hard, and it showed the moment you picked it up. Many users at the time rated the physical quality above several competing tablets in the same space.

The 7 inch display ran at 1024 by 600 pixels in a widescreen format that suited video and web browsing well, with solid brightness and color reproduction in indoor lighting. Direct sunlight was a challenge, though that was a common limitation of LCD panels at the time. The size also made it genuinely comfortable to hold and operate with one hand, which gave it a practical edge for reading and casual browsing that larger tablets struggled to match.

A 1GHz dual core Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 processor, combined with 1GB of memory, kept routine tasks running smoothly with no noticeable latency. The BlackBerry Tablet OS, which was built on a QNX platform, was actually solid and received high praise in early evaluations for its dependability. Navigation relied on edge gestures, which worked surprisingly well in practice, with swipes from the sides or top quickly bringing up menus or previously used apps. True multitasking allowed you to run multiple programs at the same time and switch between them seamlessly, and once the gesture system was activated, it seemed like a genuinely efficient method to move around the device.

Web browsing was one of the PlayBook’s real strengths. The browser handled most sites with ease and included Adobe Flash functionality, allowing you to watch films and interact with material that outperformed many rival mobile devices at the time. HTML5 performance also fared well in testing. On the entertainment front, the PlayBook handled high definition video playback with ease, the twin speakers were adequate for music, and a five megapixel rear camera and a three megapixel front camera covered both photos and video calls. A small HDMI port completed the package for anyone who wanted to project video onto a larger screen for presentations or movie nights.

At launch, connectivity included Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, with cellular possibilities added later. Depending on screen brightness and workload, the battery life was usually sufficient for a full day of mixed use. The launch software was where things became problematic. The PlayBook came without native email, calendar, or contacts apps, so users had to couple it with a BlackBerry phone using a technology called Bridge to use any of them. The connection was secure and smooth for existing BlackBerry users, who saw the tablet as a natural extension of their phone setup; however, for those without one, it was a significant drawback that was difficult to overlook.

The 16GB model debuted at $500, which is comparable to about $726 now, with higher storage options raising the price even further. Initial sales were good but fell well short of overall market forecasts, and large price cuts in late 2011 helped clear leftover inventory, particularly in Canada. By the conclusion of its run, the PlayBook had sold almost 2.5 million devices.