14 DAY TRIAL // Although RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook has already made the roundup of most Canadian major carriers, Virgin Mobile is one of the first smaller operators that plan to add the tablet to its portfolio.
The tablet is already available in two Virgin Mobile flagship stores and can be purchased for $499.99 for the 16Gb version or $599.99 for the 32GB model.
However, there's no information when the tablet might be available in other Virgin Mobile stores or kiosks. It's not even clear if the PlayBook will be largely available through the carrier's stores, but Virgin Mobile is not trying to make better offers for the tablet.
Virgin Mobile is trying to make its lineup more appealing with the addition of BlackBerry PlayBook, in comparison with some of its competitors, such as Fido and Koodo Mobile.
The carrier is now retailing the Wi-Fi version of the tablet, but RIM is expected to launch a 4G version very soon.
BlackBerry fans who are not yet familiar with the tablet's specs sheet should know that the PlayBook is powered by BlackBerry Tablet OS, which is built on user-friendly QNX technology.
The device is equipped with a dual-core 1 GHz Cortex-A9 processor (PowerVR SGX540 GPU) and packs 1GB RAM and 16GB of internal memory.
The tablet has a 7-inch TFT multi-touch capacitive display with 16 million colors support and 600 x 1024 pixels resolution.
Other highlights of the PlayBook include a 5-megapixel main camera with autofocus, a 3-megapixel front facing camera, Adobe Flash 10.1 support, built-in support for HTML 5, as well as support for video calling.
In addition, those who also own a BlackBerry smartphone can benefit from BlackBerry Bridge, a feature that allows users to wirelessly connect their BlackBerry smartphone to the BlackBerry PlayBook over Bluetooth.
BlackBerry Bridge is available as a free download on BlackBerry App World and will be supported on BlackBerry smartphones running Blackberry 5.0 OS or newer.
