Inside these posts: Blackberry Playbook

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RIM launches PlayBook, but fans don’t play along

Research In Motion’s PlayBook tablet computer launched in thousands of stores on Tuesday and mostly stayed there, a grim reminder of Apple’s lasting allure for tech-hungry consumers.

By mid-afternoon, two carriers and two electronic stores in one of downtown Toronto’s main shopping malls — where long lines greeted last month’s iPad 2 launch — had stock available. Each started the day with no more than 5 PlayBooks. Get the full story »

Blackberry Playbook to go on sale April 19

Research In Motion’s long-awaited tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook, will go on sale in the United States and Canada on April 19 at a base price of $499. Get the full story »

RIM assures that Wi-Fi only PlayBook on schedule

Research In Motion Ltd.  reiterated Thursday its plans to release the Wi-Fi-only version of its PlayBook tablet in the first quarter of calendar 2011.

“The BlackBerry PlayBook is expected to begin shipping in the U.S. in Q1,” RIM said in an e-mail sent via their outside public-relations firm, Brodeur Partners. Get the full story »

BlackBerry PlayBook hurdle: Short battery life

If Research in Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook is to succeed at market the way the company hopes, there are a few engineering hurdles to overcome. The most significant, according to Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu, is the device’s relatively poor battery life.

Sources tell him the tablet currently lasts just a few hours per charge, compared with rivals like Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, which lasts about six, and the iPad, which lasts upward of 10. If true, that’s an untenable situation for RIM, which really needs to hit the mark with the PlayBook, and it may cause a delay of the launch–if only for a bit. Get the full story »