Will the $199 PlayBook Kill the Vox??? - Page 2

PeterT · 11-21-2011, 05:25 PM

4Foot; All I meant in the Limited Functionality is that the PlayBook uses a new, Blackberry supplied Operating System, and that it's the old catch-22.

Vendors will not create applications for a new O/S until there is demand, and people tend not to buy until there are applications.

Blackberry touted compatibility with Android, but it seems to have some limitations.

Cdesja5 · 11-21-2011, 07:43 PM

I have a blackberry phone and had considered a playbook before the Vox came out. Several things made me hesitate: lack of apps, lack of expandable memory and the price. The price is now right but the other 2 points have not changed. If I were to get a different tablet I would get an iPad because I love my iTouch. I don't like my BB phone enough to repeat in a larger format.

Haesslich · 11-21-2011, 07:57 PM

... and those 70 million customers have made them release OS 2.0 for the PlayBook in Fall 2011 as promised. Not. Nor did it help them when the Torch came out with enough bugs to choke a horse, and BB OS 6 only JUST showed up, and the new QNX-based phones aren't out till next year at the EARLIEST. It's been what.. two years since they promised that they were going to move everything over and that there'd be app support for QNX?

Between that and the inability of management to actually deliver on their promises, I'm not too hopeful about the BB's future, and the recent sale (the third in three months) screams 'HP TouchPad Fire Sale - We're discontinuing the Device' all over again.

At least the TouchPad does everything a tablet should. Like email, amongst other things. As for the browser? Android gives me a choice of browsers, and I'm doing more reading than web browsing on the Vox, which means the FFS+ screen is much more useful to me.

Still, it's your money to spend how you wish. I just won't be surprised if RIM announces they're suddenly ceasing development of the long-promised OS upgrade in favor of a new device.

EDIT: OS 7 just came out this summer, not OS 6. No word on when actual QNX-based BB phones will be out, although they're hinting at sometime mid-2012.

mcrmama · 11-22-2011, 08:36 PM

At work, we had an opportunity to get a playbook among other choices from our employer. I chose not to due to the lack of apps. The apps on a device that has an LCD screen just were not there. If I was going to get anohter tablet type device (now that we have a Vox already), I want something that is not crippled by not having full access to the Android Market. Seeing how much we are using the vox (there are 4 of us using it right now and a 5th once he gets bigger), either an Android tablet or an Ipad is likely in our future for us parents to share. I'm leaning towards Android at the moment since a subcription I have uses flash video but it depends if that is still the case once we take the plunge. I do really enjoy my i-touch.

jefftheworld · 11-24-2011, 12:54 AM

As someone who works in a shop that sells both the units and being very familiar with both I'd have to say I'd take the Vox, hands down.

The Playbook has cameras and a faster processor, but it has almost no apps.

I'm not joking, I've dealt with a lot of customers and somewhere around half the time that someone asks me to look for an app that does X, the Playbook doesn't have one.

Anjohl · 11-24-2011, 03:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefftheworld

As someone who works in a shop that sells both the units and being very familiar with both I'd have to say I'd take the Vox, hands down.

The Playbook has cameras and a faster processor, but it has almost no apps.

I'm not joking, I've dealt with a lot of customers and somewhere around half the time that someone asks me to look for an app that does X, the Playbook doesn't have one.

Jeff, you don't find hatthe playbook is of higher build quality, and has a better screenn than the vox? Also,what are the major app omisions? I see facebook,dropbox, andother big name apps, what do you considar missing?

Haesslich · 11-24-2011, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anjohl

Jeff, you don't find hatthe playbook is of higher build quality, and has a better screenn than the vox? Also,what are the major app omisions? I see facebook,dropbox, andother big name apps, what do you considar missing?

No, the screen isn't better outside or in, after repeated direct comparisons. And beyond FB and te big apps, third party support is missing. You want a game not from EA? So sorry. A weather app that doesn't use The Weather Network? Good luck. Third party PDF readers which can read bookmarks in PDF files? Adobe can't, and they MAKE THE DAMN SOFTWARE WHICH CREATED THE PDF FILE.

I can do a simple search in Android app stores to the Apple one and get dozens of hits, easy. I'd e lucky to get one or two results on BB. Hell, I can find more apps for webOS. Which is DEAD.

hieronymos · 11-24-2011, 09:17 AM

I bought the Kobo Vox for it's screen and have to say I haven't been disappointed at all. Granted, I do have a little backlight bleeding, visible on pure black backgrounds, but it excels in direct sunlight. I love my balcony.

As for that endless processor myth:
You cannot compare ARM platforms by the Hz of their processor. Say, you have a PC with a 3.2 GHz Quad Core that you compare to a PC with a 3.2 Dual Core. You'd say, number 1 is faster. But what if number two has a graphics card? Then it really depends on the application you use. Can you even name 5 applications on Windows that are capable of using 4 cores at the same time?
I won't even dig into cache sizes and other factors.

I happen to have read a lot of documentation on the platform of the Kobo and there are 6 or more different processors; the plain CPU, a video processing unit, a graphics processing unit and a few coprocessors that take care of the rest.

So now a concrete example: I have a Motorola Charm, with a Texas Instruments processor at 720MHz. And the Kobo at 800MHz. You'd say they should have comparable results in a benchmark.
The best results, with Linpack:
Kobo: 13.9 MFLOPS
Charm: 5.6 MFLOPS

How do you explain that? No idea. Granted, the Charm doesn't have JIT but that accounts for maybe 10%. The frequency difference is another 11%. Where do the other 227% come from?

Android is very optimized for these platforms that have different processors. Which also means that it relies on all the different processors. The problems the Kobo has, sluggish UI, waking from sleep, unimplemented CPU scaling (thus battery life), occasional freezes when turning on, all point to a graphics driver problem. OpenGL and proprietary AMD drivers do not always play well together. Just wait for the update.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the Kobo performs necessarily better than the playbook. But how would you tell by looking at the specs and throwing frequencies around?

Anjohl · 11-24-2011, 06:30 PM

I think I will stick it out.My Vox is a very powerful ttool as it is, to be honest, the jefit fitness ap alonr makes it worth ut, as I can eeasily design workout plans at work on the vox to be synced over tomyphone for use at the gym.

4Foot · 12-03-2011, 11:35 AM

Well, I am now in a better position to comment on this question as I received a Playbook for my birthday to compliment my Vox.

The short answer is of course, that the $199 PB will not kill the Vox. After a week comparing and using the two devices I can honestly say that the Vox more than holds it's won as a great E-Reader and a pretty good Android Tablet.

The two units are virtually identical in size, weight and screen visuals. I have not found that there is a deal killing lack of apps in either one. My biggest worry, that I could not side load epub books onto the PB to read turned out to be unfounded. I found a nice EPUB reading app for .99 cents that is just perfect for reading my collection. The PB Kobo app does not allow for side loading as the Kobo app on the Vox does but I don't need that now.

The PB is faster, has twice the memory capacity and is very easy to exchange files with using the built in interface which works perfectly with my desktop Mac. The front and back cameras are a real bonus but I don't think I really need either one so the Vox is just fine without. I believe that the single best feature of the Vox is that they have made a conscious decision to NOT lock you in to a Kobo infrastructure such as Amazon has done with the Kindle. The ability to side load apps and other app stores is a real big plus for the Vox.

All in all, I actually love reading books on my Vox and it has a good set of core software, such as Contacts, Gallery that make it a good and very useful item. I carry the PB around the house and use it for email and web browsing at all other times. It has an excellent virtual keyboard and, although I never would have anticipated this as good feature, it is much less prone to shifting it's aspect from Portrait to Landscape than the Vox, which has a slightly annoying habit of changing if you don't hold it almost perfectly upright.

So, No, the PB will not kill the Vox. Especially since these prices are unlikely to be seen again. The Vox killer is likely just around the corner and will have a different label I am certain. But, the PB is a great device if you paid $199 for it and I would recommend it to anyone.

Cheers

4Foot

The Terminator · 12-03-2011, 12:16 PM

I wouldn't buy a PlayBook because it runs a dying operating system. The only things it has going for it are HDMI and a camera. Android would make a big difference.

cypherslock · 12-03-2011, 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anjohl

I think I will stick it out.My Vox is a very powerful ttool as it is, to be honest, the jefit fitness ap alonr makes it worth ut, as I can eeasily design workout plans at work on the vox to be synced over tomyphone for use at the gym.

Have you got a download link for that app? I have app brain and it does find it but always wants to go through either slideme (finds nothing) or socio.mall (crashes. Very frustrating, could use the help.

msxman · 12-03-2011, 07:11 PM

I wanted something to enhance reading ergo vox. Though I wish pulse allowed other readers to join in.

hpulley · 12-04-2011, 08:55 AM

I bought a Vox the day they came out but my wife and kids have now stolen it!

I had been bringing the Vox to work but there I don't actually read much so I got a Playbook 32GB which bridged with my work supplied Blackberry wonderfully, has great built in business apps and HDMI for projector use in meetings. The Kobo app is usable but not the best. Which $0.99 epub reader did you get?

As an ereader the Vox wins hands down. Hopefully Kobo will improve the PB app but not holding my breath for it...

The Playbook has twice the RAM but it runs out all the time! My Vox has never run out.

The battery life on the Playbook is much better. I can run it all day with wifi and Bluetooth no problem.

The Playbook has never once hung though sometimes it runs out of memory and I have no choice but to restart even after killing all apps it can be out of memory. The power button is hard to use.

The external play, pause, volume up and down, next and previous track buttons are nicen on the PB. With the Vox you have to press power, swipe to unlock and press pause to stop playback which is inconvenient. Also on PB pulling out headphones or line out pauses playback while Vox switches to speaker.

The stereo PB speakers are a million times better than the tinny Vox speaker. PB output level is also much higher, line level instead of headphones level so the volume in mycar stereo is the same as CD and radio.

With dual 1GHz processor video playback is much smoother on PB but needs most of the memory to be available
or it doesn't play.

PB appstore is sad.

Android is way more fun for hacking around. PB is nice when I just want my work to get done.

hpulley · 12-04-2011, 09:00 AM

Oh and no Overdrive app on PB either.

Pulse will be good when people use it right now it is no big loss on the PB as no one writes much at all in Pulse. Come on people, participate! Or am I just reading the wrong books? My wife bought The Help and 4000 readers but no comments??? 1Q84 has hundreds of readers, ten comments of which half are mine... dead no pulse.

11-21-2011, 07:57 PM	#18
Haesslich Fanatic Posts: 572 Karma: 1138182 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: Kobo Touch,Glo,Mini,Aura/HD/One,H20, Sony PRS-300/600, Kindle 3-PW	... and those 70 million customers have made them release OS 2.0 for the PlayBook in Fall 2011 as promised. Not. Nor did it help them when the Torch came out with enough bugs to choke a horse, and BB OS 6 only JUST showed up, and the new QNX-based phones aren't out till next year at the EARLIEST. It's been what.. two years since they promised that they were going to move everything over and that there'd be app support for QNX? Between that and the inability of management to actually deliver on their promises, I'm not too hopeful about the BB's future, and the recent sale (the third in three months) screams 'HP TouchPad Fire Sale - We're discontinuing the Device' all over again. At least the TouchPad does everything a tablet should. Like email, amongst other things. As for the browser? Android gives me a choice of browsers, and I'm doing more reading than web browsing on the Vox, which means the FFS+ screen is much more useful to me. Still, it's your money to spend how you wish. I just won't be surprised if RIM announces they're suddenly ceasing development of the long-promised OS upgrade in favor of a new device. EDIT: OS 7 just came out this summer, not OS 6. No word on when actual QNX-based BB phones will be out, although they're hinting at sometime mid-2012. Last edited by Haesslich; 11-22-2011 at 08:52 PM.

11-24-2011, 09:17 AM	#23
hieronymos Groupie Posts: 186 Karma: 45172 Join Date: Nov 2011 Device: Kobo Vox	I bought the Kobo Vox for it's screen and have to say I haven't been disappointed at all. Granted, I do have a little backlight bleeding, visible on pure black backgrounds, but it excels in direct sunlight. I love my balcony. As for that endless processor myth: You cannot compare ARM platforms by the Hz of their processor. Say, you have a PC with a 3.2 GHz Quad Core that you compare to a PC with a 3.2 Dual Core. You'd say, number 1 is faster. But what if number two has a graphics card? Then it really depends on the application you use. Can you even name 5 applications on Windows that are capable of using 4 cores at the same time? I won't even dig into cache sizes and other factors. I happen to have read a lot of documentation on the platform of the Kobo and there are 6 or more different processors; the plain CPU, a video processing unit, a graphics processing unit and a few coprocessors that take care of the rest. So now a concrete example: I have a Motorola Charm, with a Texas Instruments processor at 720MHz. And the Kobo at 800MHz. You'd say they should have comparable results in a benchmark. The best results, with Linpack: Kobo: 13.9 MFLOPS Charm: 5.6 MFLOPS How do you explain that? No idea. Granted, the Charm doesn't have JIT but that accounts for maybe 10%. The frequency difference is another 11%. Where do the other 227% come from? Android is very optimized for these platforms that have different processors. Which also means that it relies on all the different processors. The problems the Kobo has, sluggish UI, waking from sleep, unimplemented CPU scaling (thus battery life), occasional freezes when turning on, all point to a graphics driver problem. OpenGL and proprietary AMD drivers do not always play well together. Just wait for the update. Of course, this doesn't mean that the Kobo performs necessarily better than the playbook. But how would you tell by looking at the specs and throwing frequencies around? Last edited by hieronymos; 11-24-2011 at 09:25 AM.

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11-21-2011, 05:25 PM	#16
PeterT Grand Sorcerer Posts: 13,535 Karma: 78910202 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Toronto Device: Libra H2O, Libra Colour	4Foot; All I meant in the Limited Functionality is that the PlayBook uses a new, Blackberry supplied Operating System, and that it's the old catch-22. Vendors will not create applications for a new O/S until there is demand, and people tend not to buy until there are applications. Blackberry touted compatibility with Android, but it seems to have some limitations.

11-21-2011, 07:43 PM	#17
Cdesja5 Wizard Posts: 1,117 Karma: 2094306 Join Date: Oct 2011 Location: Montreal, Canada Device: Lots and lots of electronic gadgets...	I have a blackberry phone and had considered a playbook before the Vox came out. Several things made me hesitate: lack of apps, lack of expandable memory and the price. The price is now right but the other 2 points have not changed. If I were to get a different tablet I would get an iPad because I love my iTouch. I don't like my BB phone enough to repeat in a larger format.

11-22-2011, 08:36 PM	#19
mcrmama Addict Posts: 239 Karma: 16806 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: Kobo Aura One	At work, we had an opportunity to get a playbook among other choices from our employer. I chose not to due to the lack of apps. The apps on a device that has an LCD screen just were not there. If I was going to get anohter tablet type device (now that we have a Vox already), I want something that is not crippled by not having full access to the Android Market. Seeing how much we are using the vox (there are 4 of us using it right now and a 5th once he gets bigger), either an Android tablet or an Ipad is likely in our future for us parents to share. I'm leaning towards Android at the moment since a subcription I have uses flash video but it depends if that is still the case once we take the plunge. I do really enjoy my i-touch.

11-24-2011, 12:54 AM	#20
jefftheworld Groupie Posts: 190 Karma: 157090 Join Date: Nov 2011 Device: Kobo, Kobo Vox	As someone who works in a shop that sells both the units and being very familiar with both I'd have to say I'd take the Vox, hands down. The Playbook has cameras and a faster processor, but it has almost no apps. I'm not joking, I've dealt with a lot of customers and somewhere around half the time that someone asks me to look for an app that does X, the Playbook doesn't have one.

11-24-2011, 06:30 PM	#24
Anjohl Zealot Posts: 105 Karma: 559568 Join Date: Nov 2011 Device: Kobo Touch	I think I will stick it out.My Vox is a very powerful ttool as it is, to be honest, the jefit fitness ap alonr makes it worth ut, as I can eeasily design workout plans at work on the vox to be synced over tomyphone for use at the gym.

12-03-2011, 11:35 AM	#25
4Foot Member Posts: 18 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Unionville, Ontario, Canada Device: Kobo	Well, I am now in a better position to comment on this question as I received a Playbook for my birthday to compliment my Vox. The short answer is of course, that the $199 PB will not kill the Vox. After a week comparing and using the two devices I can honestly say that the Vox more than holds it's won as a great E-Reader and a pretty good Android Tablet. The two units are virtually identical in size, weight and screen visuals. I have not found that there is a deal killing lack of apps in either one. My biggest worry, that I could not side load epub books onto the PB to read turned out to be unfounded. I found a nice EPUB reading app for .99 cents that is just perfect for reading my collection. The PB Kobo app does not allow for side loading as the Kobo app on the Vox does but I don't need that now. The PB is faster, has twice the memory capacity and is very easy to exchange files with using the built in interface which works perfectly with my desktop Mac. The front and back cameras are a real bonus but I don't think I really need either one so the Vox is just fine without. I believe that the single best feature of the Vox is that they have made a conscious decision to NOT lock you in to a Kobo infrastructure such as Amazon has done with the Kindle. The ability to side load apps and other app stores is a real big plus for the Vox. All in all, I actually love reading books on my Vox and it has a good set of core software, such as Contacts, Gallery that make it a good and very useful item. I carry the PB around the house and use it for email and web browsing at all other times. It has an excellent virtual keyboard and, although I never would have anticipated this as good feature, it is much less prone to shifting it's aspect from Portrait to Landscape than the Vox, which has a slightly annoying habit of changing if you don't hold it almost perfectly upright. So, No, the PB will not kill the Vox. Especially since these prices are unlikely to be seen again. The Vox killer is likely just around the corner and will have a different label I am certain. But, the PB is a great device if you paid $199 for it and I would recommend it to anyone. Cheers 4Foot

12-03-2011, 12:16 PM	#26
The Terminator Retired Posts: 2,552 Karma: 37638420 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Vancouver Island Canada Device: Kobo Touch, Optimus One (2.3), Nexus 7 (4.2)	I wouldn't buy a PlayBook because it runs a dying operating system. The only things it has going for it are HDMI and a camera. Android would make a big difference.

12-03-2011, 07:11 PM	#28
msxman Enthusiast Posts: 49 Karma: 36 Join Date: Nov 2011 Device: kobo vox, kindle 2	I wanted something to enhance reading ergo vox. Though I wish pulse allowed other readers to join in.

12-04-2011, 08:55 AM	#29
hpulley Addict Posts: 288 Karma: 29760 Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Ontario, Canada Device: Kobo Vox, Playbook32	I bought a Vox the day they came out but my wife and kids have now stolen it! I had been bringing the Vox to work but there I don't actually read much so I got a Playbook 32GB which bridged with my work supplied Blackberry wonderfully, has great built in business apps and HDMI for projector use in meetings. The Kobo app is usable but not the best. Which $0.99 epub reader did you get? As an ereader the Vox wins hands down. Hopefully Kobo will improve the PB app but not holding my breath for it... The Playbook has twice the RAM but it runs out all the time! My Vox has never run out. The battery life on the Playbook is much better. I can run it all day with wifi and Bluetooth no problem. The Playbook has never once hung though sometimes it runs out of memory and I have no choice but to restart even after killing all apps it can be out of memory. The power button is hard to use. The external play, pause, volume up and down, next and previous track buttons are nicen on the PB. With the Vox you have to press power, swipe to unlock and press pause to stop playback which is inconvenient. Also on PB pulling out headphones or line out pauses playback while Vox switches to speaker. The stereo PB speakers are a million times better than the tinny Vox speaker. PB output level is also much higher, line level instead of headphones level so the volume in mycar stereo is the same as CD and radio. With dual 1GHz processor video playback is much smoother on PB but needs most of the memory to be available or it doesn't play. PB appstore is sad. Android is way more fun for hacking around. PB is nice when I just want my work to get done.

12-04-2011, 09:00 AM	#30
hpulley Addict Posts: 288 Karma: 29760 Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Ontario, Canada Device: Kobo Vox, Playbook32	Oh and no Overdrive app on PB either. Pulse will be good when people use it right now it is no big loss on the PB as no one writes much at all in Pulse. Come on people, participate! Or am I just reading the wrong books? My wife bought The Help and 4000 readers but no comments??? 1Q84 has hundreds of readers, ten comments of which half are mine... dead no pulse.

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