Blackberry Playbook – A new gadget for the blog.

Recently, I noticed that Blackberry had reduced the price of their Playbook quite considerably so I succumbed to temptation and went out and bought one. The Playbook is a 7″ tablet which was first released to the world in April 2011 and I had high hopes it being a real asset for posting to the blog, especially as it has a mini USB port which I had assumed would enable me to plug my camera directly into it and use to transfer photos from it instead of the ones from my ailing Blackberry Torch. It also has a nice big screen which should make it easier to check the quality of the photos.

Unfortunately this wasn’t to be the case. The only immediate option to add photos to the Playbook was via the Blackberry Desktop Manager which involves using a computer. Not what I was hoping for and not any good when you are out and about. After doing much research, I discovered a possible work round which I have yet to try out. It involves using a SD card for the camera which has built in WiFi, it is called an Eye-Fi memory card.When in your camera, it enables you to link directly with you PC or tablet and transfer the photos across. There is even the facility to use “direct mode” which will transfer the pictures across even if you are not near a hotspot.

I have also installed a WordPress app for the Playbook after anticipating that it would be the same format as on the Blackberry Torch which is really easy to use. It is similar but sadly it is isn’t quite the same and in fact there doesn’t seem to be as many settings either. Despite all this I am going to try and give it a go mainly because I want to try and improve on the standard of photos being added to the blog while I am out and about.
The browser on the Playbook is very good and provided there is a good enough WiFi connection I should be able to log on and check the dashboard and approve any comments that come my way. There are lots of other bits and pieces on the Playbook which we will also make good use of and I am sure it will be a welcome addition to the rest of our travelling gadgets.

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