July 31st, 2010, 12:01AM in Business, Mobile, Technology by Marc LequimeView Comments
Recently two sources came forward to Bloomberg with some interesting information regarding the new BlackBerry tablet in the works, the ‘BlackPad’, which will have a 9.7″ screen, similar to the iPad, including WiFi and Bluetooth Tethering to a BlackBerry smartphone, to share the Internet connection, rubbing salt in the wound of the iPad’s inability to tether – however, the device will not have the ability to connect to 3G networks on its own, two sources told Bloomberg.
Estimated prices for the launch of the new BlackPad are similar to the iPad, cites one source, that it will be $499, but instead of being focused on ‘fun’ like the iPad, rather focused on e-mail and apparently is entirely designed around… email?
RIM will face a difficult battle into overcoming Apple’s already strong presence with the iPad. In the first 80 days of the iPad being on sale, Apple sold 3 million units, a number set to increase as the iPad gets rolled out to even more countries. The iPad already has a strong base of almost 250,000 apps, whereas RIM announced their 6,000th app around a month ago.
Otherwise, the Tablet will have a few new things the iPad does not – for example, both front- and back-facing cameras, for videoconferencing, and a possible hardware keyboard.
The tablet race heats up, after HP announced a Windows-run tablet, Google seem to have various mockups for putting Chrome OS on an iPad-like device, and several other companies are expressing interest.
Whatever this Tablet is, I hope they name it something other than BlackPad. Seriously. Why.
Source: Bloomberg
