Big OS upgrade finally makes cheap BlackBerry PlayBook a bargain

BlackBerry maker RIM has finally released version 2.0 of its PlayBook tablet PC operating system almost a year later than promised.

The BlackBerry PlayBook was launched with some fanfare in February last year, but while catching the eye in many departments it severely missed the mark in others: namely onboard email, calendar and contacts, decent integration with the leading social networks and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM).

As business and messaging have always been the keys to BlackBerry’s success, these major misses led analysts and reviewers to describe the tablet as rushed and unfinished. A fix was promised for March 2011, but never came.

On the back of these issues and the connected lukewarm response sales of the PlayBook were disastrous – even with massive price drops; estimates put units sold at around 150,000 in the last quarter – compared to more than 15 million iPads.

But, finally, PlayBook OS2 is here and with almost everything promised, plus a few extras.

Users will no longer have to attach their BlackBerry smartphone to assess email, calendar and contacts, while work has been done to properly integrate Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as BlackBerry users would expect.

While BBM still isn’t included there is now access to a whole bunch of Android apps (not all), while the new BlackBerry Bridge app lets your BlackBerry smartphone connect to your tablet via Bluetooth and view your smartphone’s content on the larger, higher res PlayBook screen.

All in all, while late, these changes make the BlackBerry PlayBook a strong tablet PC option, especially when you consider it is now available for less than £200.