Thread: Newbie questions (potential for FAQ sticky)

Greetings,

I am a NOT a Blackberry device user but with the advent of the new OS, I AM very interested in the PlayBook. There may be more people like me out there who are looking for a smaller tablet with good (great) hardware at an affordable price. While I'm very interested, I'm not ordering today because I have three critical questions (that I hope all you experienced folks aren't rolling your eyes and groaning over):

1. Will I be required to have a Blackberry subscription? I have an Android phone, no interest in traditional Blackberry services and would prefer no "overhead" on a monthly basis to make the Playbook functional.
2. Is there any hope that I will be able to read my Barnes and Noble nook books (or substitute any other e-book platform) on my PlayBook?
3. Will the PlayBook OS support full Skype functionality?

Thanks for taking the time to answer. I don't really trust sales people and would hate to get a good device and end up using it as a doorstop.

Jenny

Hello Jenny,


Welcome to BBOS, I will try my best to answer your questions. First, my hats off to you for taking due diligence to research a product before you purchase it.

• Will I be required to have a Blackberry subscription? I have an Android phone, no interest in traditional Blackberry services and would prefer no "overhead" on a monthly basis to make the Playbook functional.
  

The nice thing about OS 2.0 is that it does not require you to have a BlackBerry to benefit from the PlayBook experience. In version 1.0 this may have been an issue as email so heavily relied on it. Now with OS 2,0 we have native email so you can simply add your email accounts directly on your PlayBook. In addition there is no monthly overhead, meaning that you do not need any subscription plan or anything like that. As long as you have wifi you are good to go.

Now with that being said, if you do own a BlackBerry your PlayBook experience is taken to another level as you will be able to bridge (connect) your device to your PlayBook you could look at it as being an extension of your BlackBerry.

• Is there any hope that I will be able to read my Barnes and Noble nook books (or substitute any other e-book platform) on my PlayBook?

The default e reader on the PlayBook is KoBo its actually really good. The downside is that it does not support every e eader format. Now if you want to read books that it does not support there is a great app called Book Reader for EPUB and Kindle books, and can read Kindle Books and EPUB.

• Will the PlayBook OS support full Skype functionality?

At this time no, but there are talking about moving forward with an app real soon. I suspect we could see something this year.

I hope this helps. Please let us know if you have any additional questions.