Kindle Fire vs Blackberry Playbook

Blackberry released their Playbook back in March 2011 and it was slated by tech journalists as simply being a smaller version of the iPad but at the same price. Now, just before the holiday season starts, Blackberry have taken action and slashed the price of their 7 inch tablet to compete with the Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet and Lenovo IdeaPad A1.

The basic specs of the Kindle Fire and Playbook are very similar. You get a 7 inch 1024x600 resolution screen, they both use the same dual core Texas Instruments processor clocked at 1 GHz and they both come with wifi built in. However, Blackberry have upped the ante and added a whole load of features which belies its $199 price tag.

You get forward and rear facing cameras which are both capable of recording HD video and taking high resolution photos, a 3 axis accelerometer to play some really immersive and interactive games as well as letting you use motion as an input option, GPS for satnav positioning and location based apps, stereo speakers, 16GB of storage and Bluetooth. It also has a micro USB port and a micro HDMI port so you can hook it up to a TV or monitor for HD movies.

With all this hardware it’s hard to see how the Kindle Fire can compete but there are some key drawbacks to the Playbook which means that it’s not quite the tablet it could be. First of all it doesn’t come with 3G, neither does the Kindle Fire but that’s not trying to be an all singing, all dancing tablet, it’s a media consumption device.

When you think of Blackberry you think of business and their famous email system but the Playbook doesn’t have the connectivity to let you use the Blackberry email system from anywhere. You can tether it to your Blackberry smartphone but doesn’t that make the Playbook pointless?

Another drawback is that the Playbook uses Blackberry’s own operating system which means the apps eco system is smaller than the restrictive Kindle Fire’s. Movies, TV shows and music can all be downloaded but you need separate apps for each rather than have the convenience of the Kindle Store where you can get access to over 100,000 movies, TV shows and music at the touch of a button, not to mention the millions of ebooks and over 16,000 apps that are available.

Even with these drawbacks, the Playbook shouldn’t be discounted as a superb 7 inch tablet, it knocks the socks off Lenovo’s IdeaPad A1 and we’d even say it gives the Samsung Galaxy Tab Plus a run for its money, but it really depends on what you want to use your tablet for.

The Kindle Fire will give you a better experience for consuming media, playing games and casual surfing the Internet but the Playbook is a fantastic tablet at an incredible price point so if you are not concerned about downloading content from their app store or if you already have your own library of videos, music and TV shows then the Playbook offers so much more in terms of features.