BlackBerry CEO, Thorsten Heins, has confirmed that the aging and unsuccessful BlackBerry PlayBook won’t be getting the BlackBerry 10 upgrade it was promised.
The BlackBerry 10 OS won’t be coming to BlackBerry’s ill-fated tablet, meaning Heins may have put the last nail in the coffin for the BlackBerry PlayBook
Heins revealed the disappointing news during the company’s financial results call, which revealed BlackBerry had missed its quarterly targets, causing share prices to tumble.
Although he failed to give much reasoning as to the BlackBerry PlayBook update cancellation, Heins specified that the company was “not satisfied with the level of performance and user experience” of BB10 on the tablet.
The BlackBerry PlayBook is already nearing its two year birthday, but BlackBerry said it would “support PlayBook on existing software platform and configurations” rather than updating it to the newest OS found on the BlackBerry Z10, BlackBerry Q10 and BlackBerry Q5.
The CEO originally made a promise in January that the BlackBerry PlayBook would receive the BB10 update, but it seems that to make it work would be too much time and money misspent.
Launched in 2011, the BlackBerry PlayBook failed to chip into an iPad dominated market. Plagued from the off by software and performance glitches, the BlackBerry PlayBook was originally designated as a companion tablet for BlackBerry 7 OS devices.
It was overly reliant on its smartphone counterparts until a software update added increased functions to make it more self-sufficient.
Weighing in at 425g, the BlackBerry PlayBook is 10mm thick with a 7-inch 1024 x 600p resolution LCD display. With a 1.5GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM, the BlackBerry PlayBook can be purchased in a Wi-Fi only or Wi-Fi and Cellular configuration.
The PlayBook also features a 5-megapixel rear-mounted camera and a 3-megapixel snapper in the front. It comes with 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of internal storage, but lacks a microSD card slot.
Next, read our pick of the best tablets of 2013.
