RIM recently released their answer to Apple’s iPad in the form of the Blackberry Playbook. I know I’m late for this party, but nevertheless, its interesting to note that a lot of things on the tablet industry is constantly being improved and streamlined just to be able to grab a piece of the tablet market from Steve Jobs’ hands. The Playbook is no exception to this.

Android tablets were first to show up after the iPad but for some reason, I wasn’t really very impressed with them. Products like the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Motorola Xoom, although considered to be the cream of the Android tablet crop, for some reason feels like a half-baked effort rushed into production just so Apple can have a run for their money. I dont want to run through all the features that these tablets have and the iPad doesn’t.

Features alone don’t make a product better.

I have used both Android and iOS on smartphones which were supposed to be flagship products for each (Nexus One and iPhone) and Apple is still worlds apart from Google’s abominations. Nothing is straightforward on Android. For normal people whose sole purpose in using any Android product is to simply use them everyday, this means its a nightmare. I gave my brother my Gingerbread-powered Nexus One since I replaced it with an iPhone 4 and he gave it back to me after a week telling me to just sell it. And this is coming from a guy who owns a top-of-the-line XPS, a Blackberry and a Jabra bluetooth headset.

The very same thing is happening on tablets right now. Abominations are sprouting everywhere, eager to bite a piece of the iPad’s ass. Sadly though, they are doing it in the wrong way: try to fool people into thinking these products are actually better than the iPad by blinding them with features that are either useless or doesn’t work very well. The iPad doesnt have Flash, we do. The same Flash that bogs the system down. The iPad doesn’t have a camera (before the iPad2), we do. A teeny, tiny camera that makes you look awkward when using it. And so on, and so forth…

The Blackberry Playbook though is slightly different. So different in fact, that it actually follows the iPad’s mantra: offer less features but make sure that what you have right now is the best. The Playbook is not perfect. It doesn’t have a dedicated email client (considering that it’s being marketed as a corporate tablet) and must be paired thru a software called the Blackberry Bridge with an existing Blackberry phone to be able to get emails. It doesn’t have a lot of apps as well, and RIM promises to get more apps soon.

But what’s really interesting here is the effort made into putting together a tablet like this. Whereas an Android tablet feels like it had been assembled by 10 different people, the Playbook with its QNX guts, is much more… consistent. From a designer’s point of view, everything is fluid and united. There are no multiple button designs. No shifting from transparent to opaque to embossed. Flash is surprisingly performing quite well (probably because of the dual core processors). Moving from one app to another feels natural and the whole experience is somewhat pleasant. And this for me, is very important. The user experience makes and breaks a product. It doesn’t matter if your product has a multitude of features if none of those features work well.

No one wants to own a Prius even though its economical, saves the planet and tons of your money. But everyone wants to own a GT-R.

Do I think the Blackberry Playbook is a worthy adversary to the iPad2? No. The Playbook has a lot to address. They have to push apps faster on to the QNX platform and enable Android apps compatibility. They need to have a dedicated email client and make the tablet work even for people without a Blackberry phone. At the very least, they need to have native Facebook and Twitter apps running on the Playbook before anyone notices it.

But by golly, that interface is gorgeous and with that user experience, the Playbook is off to a great start.

Update: It seems RIM had been busy and had already released Facebook for the Blackberry Playbook last May 4th. More details here: http://www.mobileburn.com/review.jsp?Id=14591