Filling The Void

I remember when the iPad was announced. I baulked at it – even referring to it on this very blog as just a big iPhone. And I still stand by that, to be honest. What is the point of owning both an iPad and and iPhone? They are the same thing, just on different scales, right? And only the biggest idiot would own the whole range of iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch...right?! The iPod Touch is just an iPhone without the phone, and the iPhone is just a small iPad. Or am I missing the point? Furthermore, have you ever seen someone taking pictures with an iPad? How fucking ridiculous do they look? Just buy a frigging camera! Oh, wait – you can’t because you’ve spent £500 on an iPad. Idiot.

Right. Now that’s settled, I’ll get to the point: I bought a tablet PC this week. Which is a bit hypocritical of me considering a) the previous paragraph; and b) because I’ve always deemed tablets as a bit pointless. But I saw this particular tablet on sale for a ridiculously low price: £129.99. And it’s not one of those super-cheap, trashy Android tablets either, which is what you’d expect to get for £129.99. Oh no, it’s one of these:

A BlackBerry PlayBook. And do you know what? It’s fucking awesome. I primarily bought it because I do a lot of travelling around on my motorbike most weekends, and I generally take my laptop with me wherever I go just so I can get online and check email, the news, watch videos etc...but the thing just takes up so much room in my backpack and won’t fit in the luggage box. Now I own a 7” PlayBook, such problems are no longer...erm...problems. For a start, the thing is tiny – much smaller than an iPad. It’s also really thin too. My previous opinion of BlackBerry was that they were a bit shit...just business phones with a crap OS and no apps, advertised as a chav’s messaging device of choice...but the quality of the PlayBook has shed new light on the whole mysterious world of BlackBerry.

So yeah – it’s a tablet PC with a really sharp screen, two HD cameras (not that I’ll be using it to take photos – I’ve got a camera for that, idiots) and a brilliant web browser that even supports Flash. Amazing. It’s only a 16GB model so I probably won’t be filling it up with music or films, but from what I’ve seen of it thus far, I’m impressed. The app store thingy has come in for a bit of criticism from various reviewers, but I can’t really see a problem with it. It’s got more stuff on offer than the old Palm Pre app store did, and there are a lot more ‘proper’ apps, as opposed to stuff just written by enthusiasts. Not that there’s anything wrong with home brew apps...it’s just nice to see official stuff on there too. The battery life is great, the sound quality is top notch and the on-screen keyboard is really good (plus it makes a satisfying ‘blip’ noise when you touch a letter...nice touch). So far, I really can’t fault it – it does exactly what you’d expect a tablet to do and for the price I paid...well the term ‘bargain’ springs to mind. I think the price was only temporarily lowered so by this time next week they’ll probably be £299 again (or whatever they were before), so I recommend getting down to PC World to pick one up before they increase the price.

Obviously, the PlayBook isn’t a patch on the (cough) iPad (cough), but it destroys the various Android tablets knocking around for about the same price in terms of quality. It’s probably not going to compete with the high-end Android tablets from Samsung, Motorola et al simply because of the bespoke OS it’s running...but for £129.99 I’m not complaining. Incidentally, the PlayBook does actually support Android apps (apparently), so that's good news, but it's never going to defeat the all-conquering Apple app store/iPad.

And just for those (three) people who may be reading this shit and are thinking about launching into a tirade about how the iPad is great and I'm a dick who hates Apple - that isn't the case. I fully appreciate that the iPad is a great bit of kit and that Apple stuff is generally brilliant. I just like to point out that if you own an iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, you are a fucking cretin. And Steve Jobs' soul owns your soul. And ass.

In other news, this week I went to see the new Batman film – The Dark Knight Rises. I was blown away by it. I saw the other two films in the trilogy on DVD because I just wasn’t that interested, and I thought the second one (with The Joker in it) was alright...if a little over-egged and confusing. But this latest one was fantastic. I went on Rotten Tomatoes and read an equal number of ‘fresh’ and ‘rotten’ opinions before I went to see it, so kind of had a neutral attitude...but I found the whole experience to be a whirlwind of excitement, great effects, brilliant story and fantastic plot twists. Looking at some of the reviews now I’ve actually seen the movie, I think some of the reviewers need to get a life and stop over-complicating things: it’s a film about a guy who dresses up like a bat and kicks ass...stop getting so het up about minor inconsistencies you knobs! Also, while it is true that Bain is sometimes hard to understand, it doesn’t really detract from the overall experience. So to the whining reviewers who rated The Dark Knight Rises as ‘rotten,’ I say this: get a grip and just enjoy it for what it is – a fantasy film.

I’ve written enough – I’m off for a sandwich.