If you’re considering the purchase of a tablet for the back-to-school season, let me share my thoughts on the BlackBerry Playbook. The PlayBook went with me on my Mommy Rounds for three solid days…..in the car, appointments, the bounce house, and to the playground at McD’s. I played several more games of Solitaire than strictly necessary to formulate my thoughts on this product. In fact, it was difficult to tear myself away in order to write a review. The PlayBook I received to review was the 16 GB WiFi. Now that I’ve visited the site and found the 4G that is being released on August 9, I’m already thinking about upgrading. That’s how much I love this thing.
It took me a few minutes to get oriented with the PlayBook; for example, I had a hard time figuring out how to organize my icons on the homepage. Once I solved that puzzle, I needed to set up the WiFi. I took the PlayBook along with me to the bounce house to play on Pinterest while the kids bounded around. My sister-in-law told me that her smart phone automatically connects to WiFi whenever she goes into a hot spot. So I patiently waited. The PlayBook didn’t automatically connect. I needed to go into the set-up mode and get it all hooked up. I actually really liked this feature because I like having that choice. However, I noticed that when I re-visited a location, the PlayBook remembered the network and did connect automatically. Smart tablet! It also loaded up much quicker than said sister-in-law’s smartphone, so we were Pinning away on my tablet while still waiting for her phone to wake up.
The PlayBook was sometimes persnickety when loading. Often a game would get snagged and need to be restarted. The web browser would have a hard time getting started and might need to be closed out. The model I received to review was a 16 and was a used model, so that might have been the issue. I’m not sure. It was kind of a pain when I was in the middle of a winning card game and had to restart. For general use, it really wasn’t a big deal though. My kids enjoyed playing the apps that I loaded. There seemed to be very few free apps to choose from; I could only find five. Still, my kids played the daylights out of those free apps. The free apps have frequent prompting to buy the upgraded version, so I had to remind the kiddos to just say No.
There seems to be a good camaraderie between BlackBerry devices. My husband has a BlackBerry smartphone and we could sync up the PlayBook to it if needed. This would be a good option if you already have your info all set up on a BlackBerry phone. Another feature that I liked was the price point. The PlayBook is reasonably priced for the convenience of a tablet. I would definitely consider getting this for my school-aged children. It’s a fun gaming device and is convenient to take along for browsing the web. My daughter enjoys using the video and picture-taking features. I’d love to try the 4G to see how it compares. You can follow BlackBerry on Facebook and on Twitter.
Now, let me get back to my solitaire game.
I may have to give it a try! Thanks for the insight.
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LOL! I’m a solitaire addict too!! Thanks for the review 🙂