RIM BlackBerry Tablet Lives – Now Half Price!

It turns out that the rumoured demise of the BlackBerry PlayBook has been greatly exaggerated and, in fact, RIM are halving the cost of their tablet.

Back in July I reported that it looked as though RIM were going to be concentrating on a ‘superphone’ instead of trying to fix the gaps in their first outing in tabletsville.

It seems that RIM have finally got tired of hearing this rumour and have actually came out to silence the naysayers:

RIM stated that, “RIM doesn’t typically comment on rumors, but any suggestion that the BlackBerry PlayBook is being discontinued is pure fiction. RIM remains highly committed to the tablet market.”

The PlayBook didn’t exactly receive the warmest of welcomes at its release as it was found lacking basic features like a native e-mail and calendar app if customers didn’t have a corresponding BlackBerry phone.

RIM has now promised that a coming 2.0 software update in the next week or so will fix this among other problems – is that too little too late to save the PlayBook?

Well, they’re also hoping that a more affordable price point may turn people onto the RIM slate. The RIM tabs now start at $299.99 for 16GB at Best Buy in the US which is a hefty $200 discount.

This is in no doubt a response to the sales upturn enjoyed by the HP ToucPad when a similarly massive price slash occurred.

Well, that and the imminent arrival of the new Kindle Fire. It just seems too great a coincidence that $200 is lopped of the price a day after Amazon announced its $199 Android-based tablet 😉

The 32GB model is now $399.99 and the 64GB costs $499.99 if you’re needing more room in your PlayBook.

Does the price make the PlayBook more desirable or would you rather grab one of Amazon’s latest?