John Paczkowski

Recent Posts by John Paczkowski

RIM: PlayBook Battery Life Will Be “Comparable,” Not Crappy

Research in Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook does not suffer from poor battery life. Or, rather, if it does now it won’t when it finally ships.

That’s RIM’s rebuttal to Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu’s suggestion that the PlayBook’s battery life is “relatively poor” compared to rivals–a claim the company says is based on the observation of a pre-beta version of the device.

“Any testing of battery life to date by anyone outside of RIM would have been performed using pre-beta units that were built without power management implemented,” RIM said in a statement. “RIM is on track with its schedule to optimize the BlackBerry PlayBook’s battery life and looks forward to providing customers with a professional grade tablet that offers superior performance with comparable battery life.”

Ah, but comparable to what? And speaking of “comparable,” what happened to “way ahead”? Wasn’t that what RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie said of the PlayBook’s performance during the company’s last earnings call? “I think there’s going to be a rapid desire for high performance. And I think we’re way ahead on that. And I think CIO friendliness, we’re way ahead on that.”

And what does RIM have to say about Wu’s suggestion that it may be forced to delay the PlayBook’s launch to optimize its battery life? Nothing beyond the oblique assertion that it’s on track with an undisclosed internal schedule. Question is, is that schedule still based on an early 2011 launch or one in the May quarter as Wu suggested. Because if it’s the latter, that means the PlayBook could conceivably arrive at market after the next-generation iPad.

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