The one major problem with the BlackBerry PlayBook

Some rights reserved by Charles Williams

With the availability of a good alternative Web browser, OrigamiBrowser, the Playbook became a very adequate tablet.  But it still has two serious and related failings:  poor battery life/high power consumption, plus a very long boot time from cold.

Under my normal usage (connected to Wifi, not a lot of video playback), my Playbook lasts about 3-4 hours.  Even with attempts to conserve power by turning on Airplane mode and putting the device into Standby, it still drains the battery more than expected.  If I turned off the tablet until I needed to use it I'd need to wait upwards of 3 minutes for the Playbook to finish booting and be ready for use:  completely unfeasible.

So I purchased an external battery with 2A output, capable of charging an Ipad, and on paper, capable of charging the Playbook.  Playing with the connectors, which I don't have to do for either an Ipad or my Lumia 920, I am able to get the Playbook to charge about 10% of the time.  To top it off, using a wall charger, it takes 3-4 hours to completely charge, about as long as the device lasts on a single charge.  Something is not right here.

So while the Playbook lasts long enough for a couple meetings and my daily commute, it isn't a device you can take to a conference and expect to use for the entire day.  I'd like to keep using the Playbook and not buy another tablet device but it will likely be relegated to use by my preschooler in the near future.

2011-07-10 - Spark in the Summer: Tim Wu on The Master Switch

• Podcast
• Tim Wu, who coined "net-neutrality" and author of The Master Switch suggests that we are entering a stage of consolidation and monopolization in the internet arena since historically after 15-20 years of a new technology, one corporation comes to dominate
• Google has more potential power to censor than the government
• For many people, Facebook has more personal information about them than the government 
• net-neutrality or principles like it are a ways to prevent a single corporation from staying in power simply by shutting out others