24 replies to this topic

[mjedi7]

I think i'm an Apple fanboy, I really, really love my iPad 2, but for $140 i was tempted to buy one! xD

[Scorbing]

firey, on 24 February 2012 - 16:38, said:

It's more for personal/pleasure however I am going to be looking into APP Development, I've always wanted to develop for android, and now that I can kill two birds with 1 stone so to speak, it makes things a little easier.

I have converted most of the android apps I use regularily from APK to BAR files, most of the games don't work, however quite a few actual apps do. I found a great concept for streaming video/music/documents with PHP and HTML5, so I may look into that as well. But yea, I paid 250$ (+ taxes, so about 280$) for my 32GB as I didn't have any coupons or anything. It's a great tablet for the money that's for sure.

I use mine to access my work exchange email, work website tools and that's it. Music? I have an iPod for that. Video? Not really going to use it. Photos? Maybe if I encounter something out of place at a customer's house and I need to take a picture and email it but other than that, I won't really use it either. Games? That's what I have my PC for and since all I play is BF3, I don't think I will use my Playbook for games either.

But you are right, some people will use it for games, music, etc. In my case the 16GB was enough and with the free 50GB Cloud storage from Box I am all set. For $140.00 I think I got a pretty good deal.

Has anyone tried to connect a USB external drive to it through the mini USB port to see if it will read it?

[firey]

Scorbing, on 24 February 2012 - 18:20, said:

I use mine to access my work exchange email, work website tools and that's it. Music? I have an iPod for that. Video? Not really going to use it. Photos? Maybe if I encounter something out of place at a customer's house and I need to take a picture and email it but other than that, I won't really use it either. Games? That's what I have my PC for and since all I play is BF3, I don't think I will use my Playbook for games either.

But you are right, some people will use it for games, music, etc. In my case the 16GB was enough and with the free 50GB Cloud storage from Box I am all set. For $140.00 I think I got a pretty good deal.

Has anyone tried to connect a USB external drive to it through the mini USB port to see if it will read it?

I dunno, the playbook will be nice for Video on the Go for me, even without wireless, if I decide to travel. I have an iPod for music, and an Atrix Phone so I have the cellular connection if I do wish to bridge.

As for making the playbook into a USB Host (aka connecting something via usb to the playbook, as opposed to the playbook being connected to the computer), it was only possible if you were jailbroken, which obviously with 2.0 is patched. I've read that it still exists in 2.0 but not sure if it can be enabled or not.

[c3ntury]

(Spork), on 17 February 2012 - 15:54, said:

that was one of the main problems with the playbook NO Apps when it launched

I believe it supported the Dalvik VM and therefore it had every Android app available to be used on the tablet from launch.

[Sacha]

Hey guys,

c3ntury, on 24 February 2012 - 19:17, said:

I believe it supported the Dalvik VM and therefore it had every Android app available to be used on the tablet from launch.

Android support wasn't there from launch. It was secretly added in 1.07, disabled in 1.08 and then officially added in 2.0.

Very annoyed that RIM killed downgrading. If they had mentioned this in advance, I could have custom ROMs in preparation.

P.S. I'm the Dingleberry developer.

[+TruckWEB]

For the price, with the Playbook 2.0 update, it seems like a nice little tablet to own. Can't be worst than a Kindle Fire? And it makes a good 7in GPS too!

[migo]

Sacha, on 05 March 2012 - 11:03, said:

Hey guys,



Android support wasn't there from launch. It was secretly added in 1.07, disabled in 1.08 and then officially added in 2.0.

Very annoyed that RIM killed downgrading. If they had mentioned this in advance, I could have custom ROMs in preparation.

P.S. I'm the Dingleberry developer.

That is a bummer. What are the odds you can get another exploit going?

[firey]

I've actually seen Sacha on Crackberry, if I recall correctly, where it stands now is...

The QNX File System (Aside from the /tmp folder) is all mounted without the SetUID and SetGUID flag, which basically forces us to be stuck with the file permissions that are set for the user we are given with no way to elevate as another user for different access. Along with that, the Share Service (Samba) and the SSH Server (To communicate with the OS) are no longer run as root.

Because neither is run as root we cannot elevate either to root, or use the root user. I haven't checked, but I believe root is also disabled configuration wise from logging into SSH. So as it stands, it's like using a Windows Standard user without the option to login as admin, or run a program as admin.

Also, because we can't elevate our user, or run apps with root permissions enabled, even if we could launch programs in the linux environment, they would all be run as the standard account.

[CrisCr0ss]

I love my playbook use it for everything, the apps are slowly coming. gestures are flawless. browser 10x improved since 2.0 Obivously few minor things missing but overall experience has been great. Few apps I would love to see come native but I'm sure in due time.

[firey]

CrisCr0ss, on 12 March 2012 - 14:36, said:

I love my playbook use it for everything, the apps are slowly coming. gestures are flawless. browser 10x improved since 2.0 Obivously few minor things missing but overall experience has been great. Few apps I would love to see come native but I'm sure in due time.

I couldn't agree more. I really don't feel there is anything lacking, or that I want to do with my playbook I can't (except for 1 thing). I would like a working VOIP or Google Voice/Talk app. Currently I can send SMS texts from my playbook but I can't make or receive calls. If I could do that, I'd be set, granted I do have a cell-phone and an iPod that can make calls if need be.

However, with more and more apps becoming available, and android apps being updated to support the playbook it's really coming together to make for a great tablet.