RIM Playbook Browser Takes On iPad

RIM is still in the final stages of tweaking its tablet OS for the forthcoming Playbook tablet, but even in an unfinished state, it bests the iPad browser in a number of everyday tasks. Will that be enough to win some users over?Boy Genius Report has a video that pits the Playbook against the iPad for common web browsing tasks, and the iPad doesn't fare so well.

For example, when loading a web page, the Playbook was nearly done rendering before the iPad really got started. In one test, they went to a page loaded with Flash content. Although it was a bit sluggish compared to an adequately powered desktop machine, the Playbook loaded the content and rendered it just fine. The iPad's rendering of the same site is unrecognizable.

Will that matter though? Even though the Playbook does web browsing faster, the iPad is no slouch, unless Flash is critical for you. While there are web pages that use flash, most of the Flash I see day to day are annoying ads, so it wouldn't bother me if that stuff didn't load anyway.

The iPad offers much more too. For media, iTunes integration lets you keep your music in sync and you also get access to all of the TV shows available in iTunes. Then there are the apps. The App Store has over 300,000 apps in it, though a decent chunk of those are books, not apps, but I digress.

RIM is on the right track in shooting to match or best the iPad's performance, but it has an uphill battle to overcome the advantage Apple has with its unmatched combined library of music, video, apps and ebooks.