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Blackberry Handhelds Operating Systems Upgrades Hardware

Yes, PlayBook Does Get BlackBerry 10 Update 90

Posted by timothy from the seriously-how-is-blackberry-compelling-nowadays? dept.
judgecorp writes "Yesterday's BlackBerry 10 announcement did not mention the company's tablet, the Playbook, but users will be relieved to know it will get an update to BlackBerry 10. It's not a huge surprise, since BB10 is based on the PlayBook's QNX operating system, but PlayBook users may have been worried since the company did not even mention the struggling tablet in passing at the event." Hopefully the Playbook's camera is better than the one in the new BB10-based Z10 phone, the low-light performance of which Gizmodo describes as "four-years-ago crap."
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Yes, PlayBook Does Get BlackBerry 10 Update More

Yes, PlayBook Does Get BlackBerry 10 Update

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  • Reviewer is not a photographer (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Hey Gizmodo, why is the Z10 picture not framed the same way as the other three phones? The soldier's head is halfway down the picture, as opposed to the top for the other three pictures. Maybe Mario Aguilar should learn to point cameras before he reviews them.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      So what your saying is that he was "holding it wrong"? And exactly how would moving the shoot point up make the image brighter?

      • Framing the picture differently affects how the exposure settings are chosen by the auto-exposure algorithm since the sample points will be distributed differently in the scene than with the other cameras. If one of the exposure sample points happens to be significantly brighter than the others, then the sensitivity of the sensor could be tuned down to ensure that the picture is not saturated (the upper right of the image seems brigher than the rest of the image). This calls the validity of the test into qu

  • A Date would be nice? (Score:3)

    by GreyLurk ( 35139 ) on Thursday January 31, 2013 @10:58AM (#42751207) Homepage Journal
    When? I think it's interesting how BB touts to it's developers that 90% of it's users upgrade to the newest OS within a month of it's release. The reason seems to be because they can't download any good apps for it, so they're desperately hoping to get some functionality out of the Base OS.
  • This was mentioned at the alpha launch(es), I guess it was an oversight on 'real' launch day. Being able to write 1 app that with little to no code change runs on a BB tablet or phone will be huge for bringing the BB app store back into the light. Not to mention to android OS support making porting a piece of cake.

  • Seriously - what is slashdot's agenda? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Layzej ( 1976930 ) on Thursday January 31, 2013 @11:00AM (#42751233)
    Why does slashdot/timothy have such a hate on for Blackberry? They have just released a great new product with a revolutionary interface, hardware (including camera) that most reviewers are putting heads and shoulders above the competition. Slashdot just keeps slinging the FUD.

    • Actually the camera is shitty...
      But the rest is really nice.

    • The palm pre probably still spanks the shit out of it in the multi-tasking, how is that revolutionary? Was there a for the issue with charging while it was on or off and then there was the whole mail issue needing to be tethered to another device for mail? Maybe I'm digging up old bones, but I wouldn't touch it.

    • Re:Seriously - what is slashdot's agenda? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gbjbaanb ( 229885 ) on Thursday January 31, 2013 @11:15AM (#42751417)

      and they've done a decent job with the overall design (not the looks), the predictive text works by putting the word you might want above the next letter you type, so if you type "the" then it will put "they're" above the y key so you just swipe up from that key. without having to look elsewhere and context-switch your brain to see a list of possible words. Someone sat down and thought about that, and that attention to software engineering detail gets a big thumbs up from me.

      • Re:Seriously - what is slashdot's agenda? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gutnor ( 872759 ) on Thursday January 31, 2013 @12:27PM (#42752381)

        Overall BlackBerry have done quite a good job. They manage to have a distinct style, an OS with both familiarity and feature that set it apart both for home and office. As for the polish, the phone comes with loads of app (android port), complete line of accessories, and an OS that seems on par feature-wise with the competition. They also don't turn their back on their core market, the business,

        I don't see how BB could have done a better launch, and if the phones deliver on the promises during the first round of reviews, they are in as best place as they could have been.

        Obviously they have a loooong way to go and the odds are against them big time. But for the time being, well done BB engineers !

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      because it's all so-so?

      who the fuck is saying that they the camera is good? it's only good if you're a bb fan and had your last phone bought 4 years ago and are comparing to that(and were a bb fan so you didn't have a n95..).

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      They have just released a great new product with a revolutionary interface

      I suppose it's revolutionary for a company that once mocked the iPhone to now imitate it.

    • Anyone who has had to administer BES probably has hate for these stupid little devices. I know I do.

    • Are you seeing the same review as me? The crackberry review took shots on the lumia 920, iphone 5, z10 and samsung s3. Images on the z10 are the worst on every test out there.

      The camera just sucks, and it proves megapixels don't mean squat.

      Never mind that they removed push email support from non corporate accounts, don't have pull down notifications like every platform out there, and abysmal 1 day battery compared to previous versions.

    • I OWN a PlayBook and I don't think terribly highly of it. OK, it's not that bad, but I literally have nothing to do on it. There's just nothing to do on it that my Android phone doesn't do better (except for having a large screen).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Layzej ( 1976930 )
        Then you may be glad to hear that it is getting a revamped OS. One that is causing quite a buzz. As to why the editor added speculation about the Playbook camera - I'm really not sure. I imagine that (if the playbook even has a camera) it is well known how it performs. If it does have a camera you may find the time shifting on photos to be a cool feature. This allows you to pull any spot on the photo back in time to capture the perfect smile on each of the subjects. How cool is that?

    • Slashdot does not sling FUD, users do. Every time a new iPhone comes out, Android users make fun of it, and vice versa.

      The thing to remember about Slashdot is this is where the tribes collide. Most of the self-reinforcing opinions people share does not make sense. The valuable points get modded to the top, and the trolls mark themselves anonymous. It's not a bad thing to get bent out of shape about, some remarkable conversations emerge from the variety of opinions.

      That said, I own an iPad, a Nexus 7, a Gala

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Layzej ( 1976930 )

        Slashdot does not sling FUD, users do.

        A user submitted a story that the playbook would be upgraded with the new BB10 OS. A slashdot editor (timothy) tacked on speculation about whether the playbook has a 'crappy' camera. There is no need to speculate about this. The playbook has been out for almost 2 years. If it even has a camera, the quality thereof is likely well known.

        He also added "from the seriously-how-is-blackberry-compelling-nowadays? dept". This is a good question and one that deserved to be answered in the summary. There are a

  • and ars says (Score:5, Informative)

    by gbjbaanb ( 229885 ) on Thursday January 31, 2013 @11:02AM (#42751261)

    ArsTechnica [arstechnica.com] has a user comment (scroll down, its the 'editors pick') showing the problem with the camera:

    I should also point out that the iPhone's applied far more contrast to the picture and, as a result, lost detail - look at the flat area of darkness in the trunk compared to the range of tones present in the pic from the BB. These are all post-processing problems, though, and (assuming both devices were on default settings) really just tell you that Apple's software is set to produce 'punchier' pictures out of the box as opposed to the lighter processing done by the BB, which ultimately retains more of the image.

    so its not crap, it just doesn't aggressively sharpen everything like the iPhone does, so it appears less defined and misty. Its just appearance though, slap it through the same amount of software processing and you'll get the same result.

    Anyway, they say the keyboard is excellent and can be used with 1 hand (or 1 thumb) which is a definite design win.

    • Not only that, we know what the Playbook's camera is like. It has been out on the market for forever now. I'm not sure why the deliberate dig was taken in the editor's comment. Also, Gizmodo? Yuk.

    • Yeah, but its a camera on a phone. Most users of a camera phone aren't going to go through the hassle of adjusting the sharpness of the pictures. Apple, in this case, chose the right thing to produce an image that the user wants, rather than simply trying to deliver the most information in the picture that can be extracted.

      Now if we were talking about slr's then I'd want the blackberry's camera.

      • But most users are just going to apply an instagram or hipstamatic filter (or use BB's filters). Besides, this is something they can change with an OTA update. If the feedback comes in that people really want an auto-sharpened image, BB can make that mod quite quickly.

  • She's been underwhelmed with her PlayBook and found it a little flaky, prone to losing its network, or locking up and needing a hard boot.

    The last upgrade fixed the rather pathetic battery life, so maybe this will improve it even more.

    I'm tired of the scowls from her since I'm the one who bought it for her. We know a couple of people with them, and they seem to have the same kind of results -- though, I certainly know people who say theirs are the most stable things ever. To us, it's failed to live up to

  • Seriously, a full article about how sub-par a single feature is in a smartphone. Gizmodo has been overtly critical of Blackberry in the past, but that's just ridiculous.

  • QNX and BB10 (Score:3)

    by frank249 ( 100528 ) on Thursday January 31, 2013 @01:12PM (#42752997)

    BB10 and the Playbook OS are both based on QNX which is also in 60% of all car infotainment units. Rock solid micro kernal OS that is also used in nuclear plants and medical devices. I have used my Playbook for over two years now and it has new crashed. Apps install without having to reboot. I think many people will be pleasantly surprised with how well BB10 and QNX just works. It also sets the stage for more integration between smartphones, tablets, and car systems.

    As for the update to the Playbook, Crackberry.com says that a new version of the Bridge program is in Appworld now which means that the Playbook update to BB10 could be any day now.

  • The Z10 photo in the Gizmodo comparison just looks underexposed, so it's likely just a shortcoming in the software's exposure algorithm rather than a problem with the image sensor/camera. Should be easy to fix.
  • Slashdot story submitter should use better judgement. The picture taken on the BB10 phone wasn't even framed like the others were: http://forums.crackberry.com/attachments/blackberry-z10-f254/133209d1359583067-gizmodos-camera-review-low-light-performance-fail-wwzsmmo.jpg [crackberry.com]

  • And I had it before it outsold the Ipad 4 over the holiday period in the UK by a ratio of 4-1.
    Since it had ver 2 and later updates, has a decent mail client onboard now - and its core apps (Music, Pics, Movies, Internet, E-reading) all work to a reasonable nice standard - its price is low, and you get 64 GB so don't have such a need for storage - all on what might be termed awesome pricing.

    I think Mx Player on droid plays more, but cut to the chase, the core movie player played everything I threw at it, and

  • My Playbook now does exactly what I want it to do. It's a great remote terminal for my Linux box and a great tablet. I sincerely hope that upgrading to 10 will have no impact on this.

    Incidentally, Playbooks, refurbished, have reached the "fun toy" price. Seriously, cheaper than the Kindle Fire I got Christmas 2011, and way ahead of it specs wise.

    Oh, and the Playbook's cameras?

    "PlayBook Features a 3 MP front-facing camera for video chatting over Wi-Fi and a rear-facing 5 MP camera, both of which can recor

  • ...And, will boot-time improve when it's updated to BackBerry 10...? :-)

    • A 64GB PlayBook w/ S/W updated to 2.1 would play most or even all of the Creative Common licensed files comprising the available portions of KhanAcademy.org, but it wasn't easy to find & go through a sequence of course files.

      (There's a PlayBook-specific app for KA courses, but it sorted files of KA's courses rather poorly, IMO; at least it could play both Flash & MP4 format files just fine.)

      I hope the BlackBerry 10 updated PlayBook can leave such course files where ever we decide to place them, ie,

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