Apple’s iPad rules the tablet roost, but the market for 7-inch tablets is a bit of a free-for-all, and Google’s Nexus 7 and RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook are two products battling for the same consumers at similar price points.
The Nexus 7 comes off a hot summer that saw it sold out after it launched in July. At $209 for the 8GB version and $259 for the 16GB, customers had little reason to argue with the price. Of course, there are trade-offs, what with there being no rear camera, no memory card slot and no cellular data. But an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and a 720p HD display are compelling on their own. Oh, and it helps that it stays on for eight to 10 hours on one charge.
The Wi-Fi-only PlayBook came to market 15 months before the Nexus 7, though the 4G LTE version recently launched in August. The apples-to-apples comparison is with the Wi-Fi-only PlayBook, a much-maligned device that has undergone two price cuts in less than a year. The recent 2.1 operating system added more functionality to the tablet that brings it closer to what the original vision was. It will also be upgradeable to BlackBerry 10 when that finally comes to market in early 2013.
As is, the 32GB PlayBook is now just $149.99, while the 64GB is $219.99. That’s four times the internal memory of the 16GB Nexus 7 for $40 less. A good deal, or a smokescreen for a product lacking in other key areas?
The answer to that largely comes from accessibility and compatibility. In that sense, the Nexus 7 wins because Android trumps the PlayBook’s operating system in both respects. It has more apps, offers more variety and can interface with more accessories and third-party products than the PlayBook can.
Netflix, Kindle, Firefox, Dropbox, TuneIn and a wide swath of games and useful apps aren’t available on the PlayBook like they are on the Nexus 7. What BlackBerry App World offers are alternative and workaround apps.
Kobo instead of Kindle. SimpleBrowser instead of Firefox. Netflix doesn’t support the PlayBook, but Flix offers a way to make it happen. Forget finding TuneIn, so look for BlackBerry Radio to fill in with its 50,000 radio stations.
There are plenty of business apps in Google Play, but the PlayBook has more variety and better security. Some even interface with BlackBerry phones. Multitasking is great on the PlayBook, and watching movies or shows stored on either device isn’t all that different, except for screen resolution.
The PlayBook can run Android apps, but only the ones that have been ported over to App World. Tech-savvy users can install unsupported ones through a process called “sideloading”, which requires an app called DDPB be installed first.
What matters here depends on how you measure either tablet’s ability to do what you actually want it to do. For convenience and playing around, the Nexus 7 wins. For basic tasks and something small business-friendly, the PlayBook is a good bet.
Source : calgaryherald
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