BlackBerry Playbook vs Apple iPad vs Samsung Galaxy Tab

The battle of the tablets are heavily underway with the Apple iPad leading the race being first to the market selling more than 3 million units in the first 80 days of being available, however Samsung and RIM are not just going to let Apple rule the tablet market, both these manufacturer introduced tablets of their own, the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the BlackBerry Playbook.

Here are some comparisons between the BlackBerry Playbook, Apple iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab:

BlackBerry Playbook Apple iPad Samsung Galaxy Tab
Operating System BlackBerry Tablet OS iOS 3.2 (iOS 4 expected soon) Android 2.2 (Froyo)
Screen Size 7.6″ 9.7″ 7″
Screen Resolution 1024×600 1024×768 1024×600
Processor 1GHz Dual Core Processor 1GHz Apple A4 Processor 1GHz Cortex A8 Processor
RAM 1GB 256MB 512MB
Storage Memory 16GB 16GB, 32GB or 64GB 16GB or 32GB
MicroSD Storage None None Up to 32GB
Connectivity WiFi / Bluetooth 2.1 / DLNA / 3G via Smartphone WiFi / 3G / Bluetooth 2.1 WiFi / 3G / Bluetooth 3.0 / DLNA
Cameras 3MP front, 5MP rear, 1080p video recording None 1.3MP front, 3.2MP rear + flash
Adobe Flash Flash 10.1 Not a chance Flash 10.1
Multitasking Yes Not true multitasking Yes
GPS No Yes Yes
Weight 400g 680g/730g Wi-Fi/3G 380g
Battery Life Not specified 10h video, 140h audio playback, 1 month standby 7 hours video

The tablet market suddenly just got a whole lot interesting with the introduction of the BlackBerry Playbook. Although there are still some features that RIM failed to announce, it is pretty clear that with all that power under the hood the Playbook may just be as good as the Apple iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab, if not better.

Which one of the above tablets would you prefer?

What to get: Uncapped vs Capped ADSL

The South African ADSL market has seen significant change the last couple of days, but what is all this capped and uncapped ADSL all about and what should you get?

First MWEB stunned the local ADSL market with their introduction of really cheap uncapped Internet, and then just days later Afrihost followed suit by undercutting MWEB and introducing even cheaper uncapped ADSL. But what is the difference between this uncapped and capped ADSL and what should you use?

To put it simple uncapped ADSL allows for unlimited browsing, email, videos etc whereas capped ADSL only allows for a certain amount of data to be used. Typically uncapped ADSL will be used if you are a heavy downloader or like to watch YouTube allot or stream Internet radio whereas capped is ideal for more critical applications like browsing, Skype, gaming, remote desktop, VPN’s or Emails.

Uncapped ADSL makes use of high content ratios that allow ISP’s to give it to the users at cheaper costs, although capped ADSL also makes use of this content ratios the uncapped ratios is significantly higher than that of capped. What is content ratios you ask? Think of it like this, say the ISP has 10mbps bandwidth available to them, a content ratio of 10:1 will then see that 10mbps being shared amongst 10 users. If all 10 users start using high bandwidth applications at the same time theoretically they will only have 1mbps available to them even if they all have 4mbps lines.

As you can see the higher the content ratio the slower your Internet can become, and this is where capped ADSL beats uncapped ADSL for critical applications.

Conclusion is if you only use the Internet for browsing, email and gaming I would suggest sticking to capped ADSL at around R29 per GB it is still a steal, but if you are more into downloading large amounts of data or streaming YouTube constantly then I would urge to you go for one of these new uncapped accounts. I am in no way saying that services like gaming, Skype etc wont work on uncapped, I’m just saying that it works better on a capped account.

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