Report: RIM PlayBook battery doesn’t measure up

December 29, 2010 By Geoff Duncan

RIM's PlayBook tablet might have an Achilles' Heel: according to one report, its battery life isn't anywhere close to the Apple iPad or Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Canada’s Research in Motion is hoping to make a big splash with its PlayBook, a tablet companion to its BlackBerry smartphones that it says will beat the iPad at Web browsing and be a hit with enterprise customers. However, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal’s All Things D, the PlayBook’s QNX operating system may come with a high price: the PlayBook’s battery reportedly only lasts a “few hours” per charge. In comparison, the Samsung Galaxy Tab typically gets six hours of use per charge and the Apple iPad can run as long as 10 hours—and both those devices are already on the market.

The report quotes Kaufman Brothers analyst Shaw Wu speculating RIM may delay the launch of the PlayBook in order to address battery-life issues.

RIM’s PlayBook tablet will offer a 7-inch touchscreen display, 1 GB of RAM, and a dual-core 1 GHz processor, which means it should outperform tablets on the market today. (And RIM has giddily released a video showing the PlayBook handling the Web faster than an iPad.) However, that processing power probably means greater battery consumption—and the PlayBook is based on an operating system from recent acquiree QNX, which was originally designed for vehicles and other items with steady power sources, rather than for the battery-sipping requirements of mobile electronics.

Although RIM is undoubtedly putting work into optimizing the QNX operating system for mobile devices—the OS is expected to migrate to RIM’s smartphones eventually—the more practical solution for extending the PlayBook’s battery life may well be a bigger (and heavier) battery. Of course, the PlayBook is already looking to be late the tablet game, and any additional delays mean the PlayBook is not likely to be competing against the current Apple iPad, but the next Apple iPad.

Showing 11 comments

Guest at 12:01pm 29th December 2010 In fact, Mr. Wu just said he "heard" it from someone. He doesn't say who.
1. ioman at 3:45pm 29th December 2010 Where did he say that? Link please.
Daniel Drummond at 10:58am 29th December 2010 You need to check your facts first. Shaw Wu is nothing more than an Apple back door plant. It seems awfully funny that this comes out right before the CES. I wouldn’t trust anything he said more than I could spit. Give me a break, the Playbook has a 5300 mAh battery. This far surpasses any other tablet out there. I can’t believe how many reporting sites fell for this hogwash. It is ridiculous. The only way the battery could be run done to that length of time would be by running multiple energy demanding site such as movies, music, and videos. You need to check with the source before you publish information like this
1. ioman at 11:02am 29th December 2010 They quoted the Wall Street Journal....how is that a bad source?
  1. Guest at 11:41am 29th December 2010 Mr. Wu isn't a disinterested bystander. He has predicted the Playbook will only sell 700 k units. Sounds like he is trying to make this a self-fulfilling prophecy by talking trash to potential buyers.
  2. John Megath at 11:56am 29th December 2010 FYI: Wall Street Journal is not the SOURCE. They reported Wu analysis. Sources that were not mentioned told Mr Wu about the battery life.
    ioman at 12:00pm 29th December 2010 FYI John. Mr. Wu is an ANALYST which means he gets paid for giving informed information. I am sure his sources are legit. If he is giving wrong information, I am sure he would be fired by now. He is a professional sir. ;)
    John Megath at 1:53pm 29th December 2010 Mr Wu works for Kaufman Bros an Investment Banking and advisory firm on technology. Now the question you should ask yourself: Will the success of the Playbook benefits their investments? By the way he had made more than 50 prediction/analysis on RIM that returned to be FALSE 90% of the time.
    ioman at 3:47pm 29th December 2010 http://www.kbro.com/EquityResearch/Overview/tabid... "At Kaufman Bros. we recognize that research is at the core of the services we offer. Our expertise and fundamental analysis of focused industries within the technology, media, telecom (TMT) and green technology and healthcare landscape is the foundation on which our firm is built. Our analysts are dedicated to the creation and delivery of forward-thinking, timely research. With an average of more than 10 years of Street experience, our analysts are well regarded by institutional investors and are consistently ranked for their estimate accuracy and the value of their research by StarMine, Bloomberg etc. Throughout their careers, several of our analysts have achieved top ranking in industry polls such as the Wall Street Journal, Institutional Investor, Forbes and Greenwich Associates. For a look at the various industries and companies we cover, please select on of the industries from the navigation on the left." Nice try. 90% of the time he is wrong? Do you have evidence to back that up John? Sorry, but if he thinks the Playbook will fail, he has every right to tell his shareholders that. It's his educated opinion. Not yours. Deal with it.
    John Megath at 5:38pm 29th December 2010 Are you quoting from their web page? When i mentioned he is 90% wrong i was referring to the analysis on RIM products. see for yourself: http://guides.macrumors.com/Shaw_Wu_(Analyst) and take the time to see that he is only accurate on 2 Companies. Synnex and HP. And by the way i also have the right not to trust his analysis when in fact he is not really independent because it verge to get people to invest a certain way. I will give someone that is working on behalf of consumer benefits more credit than a guy that's after profit on the market. Thanks for the exchange anyway, i will let as it is. Happy Holidays.
    
    John Megath at 5:52pm 29th December 2010 http://biz.yahoo.com/a/6/61497.html