I took the chance to go and play with the BlackBerry PlayBook today, first at Staples only to find its unit unresponsive and totally locked on the boot screen. I took a quick stroll over to my local Best Buy to see if I could play with a little more than just the hardware. Fortunately, Best Buy’s unit was functioning perfectly and I got a solid fifteen minutes to take the OS for a spin.

In typical review fashion (though this isn’t a review, in fact it’s just a quick summary of my first impressions after some very brief time with the device) I’ll start with the PlayBook’s hardware. 

I’ll say it right off the bat, I really like the feel of the PlayBook. I think the 7-inch size has a lot going for it, and I definitely like it more than the larger, 9.7-inch screen on the iPad. It’s so much easier to hold and you can actually use it with one hand without having to cradle the thing in your arms like an infant. While I like the size, I’m not in love with the 16:9 aspect ratio. It works well in landscape, especially for viewing photos or videos, but in portrait it’s a little awkward because it’s so tall and narrow. Adapting the iPad’s 4:3 aspect ratio may have been a better move here, but the PlayBook is designed to be used primarily in landscape while the iPad is primarily focused on the portrait orientation.

The really exciting thing about the PlayBook is its new, QNX-based operating system which resembles webOS so much that it should be a crime. While I think that the blatant ripoff of HP’s webOS is pretty evil, it’s what makes the PlayBook so fun and intuitive. Gestures on the PlayBook make the iPad feel like it was made by Fisher Price. Many of these gestures are direct ripoffs from webOS such as, a swipe from the bottom bezel to enter card view or to summon the app drawer if already in this view, a swipe down from the top bezel gives you application or system options depending on where you are in the OS. RIM has a couple gestures of its own though, including a diagonal swipe from the bottom-left corner to bring up the virtual keyboard or a diagonal swipe from the top-left to show the notification pane. While in an app, a swipe from the left or right bezel to the opposite side of the screen will switch to neighboring application that you see in card view. RIM even gives users a way to avoid using the PlayBook’s terrible power button by implementing a left-to-right gesture which wakes the PlayBook from sleep.

The bottom line for me is that the PlayBook operating system. is really great. It’s fast, it’s intuitive and it’s a direct ripoff of one of my favorite mobile operating systems.

Now, to get down to the not so good stuff. While I love the core operating system, the 3rd-party application selection is a huge letdown both from a quality and quantity standpoint. It’s too bad too because the PlayBook has so much potential, but without good 3rd-party support there’s no reason anyone should buy this over an iPad that has a strong catalog of high-quality applications.

It has been highly publicized that the PlayBook doesn’t have native email or calendar applications at launch without being connected to a BlackBerry over the BlackBerry Bridge, and it’s a huge oversight. RIM is kidding themselves if they think that webmail is a sufficient replacement for a dedicated email app. RIM has said these services are coming in a month and they need to make that date if they want to sell any of these things. RIM has a lot of work to do to rework how BIS and BES handle device IDs in order to allow simultaneous access to the same account from two devices. PINs will phase out from the consumer-facing side of BlackBerry and will be replaced by BlackBerry ID, which will allow multiple devices to access one BIS or BES account.

It’s going to be great when RIM gets this all figured out, but I’m nervous it won’t get it done as early as it says it will. I’m more excited about RIM than I have been since I started following the company. Unlike many tech journalists, I’m excited about the upcoming BlackBerry devices even though they will be running BlackBerry 6.1 and not the QNX-based OS that’s on the PlayBook. I’m not saying I’m ready to make a BlackBerry my next phone, but I’m glad RIM is finally putting some solid chipsets in their smartphones.

Oh, that’s right I have one of these. I should update it or something.