RIM’s Answer To The iPad? The PlayBook

(Image courtesy of CNNMoney)

Well, one and all, Research in Motion has pulled the wool off their entry into the tablet pool, at a developer conference on Monday, according toCNNMoney.  Their tablet will feature a 7-inch screen, Flash-capable video and a front and rear high-definition camera.  But will it be enough to take down the iPad?

“Every successful professional has a great PlayBook,” said Mike Lazaridis, co-chief executive of Research in Motion, at the BlackBerry Developer conference in San Francisco.

As mentioned above, the device will sport a 7-inch screen, Flash-capable video as well as a front and rear high-def camera.  It’s also quite thin, coming in at 9.7 millimeters, and weighs a mere .9 pounds.  But lo and behold, Lazaridis was not able to name a price just yet.

For the time being, the PlayBook is planning to be released in 2011 and will only be able to connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi.  But RIM is planning on offering up 3G and 4G versions down the road.

RIM’s goal is “to offer an uncompromised Web experience,” said Lazaridis.

The PlayBook will also maintain a 1 GHz dual-core processor and 1 GB of RAM.  It’ll be compatible with HDMI video output, Bluetooth and microHDMI and microUSB.

Curiously though, PlayBook users won’t see RIM’s hot off the presses BlackBerry 6 operating system.  In place of that, will be a new operating system via QNX Software Systems, who RIM scooped earlier on in the year.

At the conference, a QNX rep said that the PlayBook will offer up “just a great gaming experience.”

Lazaridis added on that the BlackBerry Messenger system will be “opened as a social platform for applications,” but didn’t give much information beyond that.  He also commented that in-app payments as well as a BlackBerry advertising service will “generate revenue immediately.”