[LonelyTylenol]

I'm interested in the BlackBerry PlayBook. I currently have a Storm2 and access the Net often throught the day. Mostly information searches. Once in a while, some YouTube or news site videos. No gaming. Kind of slow, most of the time. But serviceable maybe 80% of the time.

Demoed the BBPB this week at Best Buy and speed of access to Net via WiFi was pretty good for me. Acceptable, for sure. So, that box is checked.

What I couldn't do was test the new tablet's Bridged Browser connection. A couple of folks here have described it as "painfully slow." But I haven't found a lot of other discussion on browser performance.

Will the BBPB Bridge Browser experience be, essentially, the same as surfing the Net with the Storm2, only with a bigger, much clearer screen? Will it be slower than that? Is it worth using? Will it get better?

Can anyone share their browsing experiences so far with the BBPB? What's your qualitative (or quantitative) assessment of either BBPB browser's performance? Is it slower than other tablets?


Thanks, all.

[darkmanCANADA]

I have both the Storm2 and Playbook and use both every day. The other day I used the Bridge Browser on the way to work (while someone else drove) and it was decent. I was just reading news, emails and Facebooking so no real online streaming. The performance of Bridge would really depend on your signal strength and what type of media you are accessing.

I probably don't use it as much as I should because my at work I have dual 22" monitors. But any time I am away from my desk I will always have my Storm2 and/or the Playbook with me.

[fadmin]

Not worth to spend that kind of money. You get way more real estate with IPAD2. Or wait for a newer gen 10" as they say would be released soon. Browsing through my torch slow as hell. Connecting it to an iphone or android 3G used as WAP was very fast.

[sid_kid]

It really all depends on what you are trying to browse. i have a 9800 and a PlayBook and I find the browsing on my Torch to be very fast depending on signal strength as well as what type of site I am looking for. In my Bridge Browser bookmarks i have mobile versions if sites saved so that way if i am needing to use the Bridge Browser I can load sites much quicker. My wife has an iPhone and I find the performance of both phones to be comparable when loading similar or identical sites. Hope this helps...

[aiharkness]

I've described the bridge browser as painfully slow, but that's right now, with the current mass-released OS (.1868). With the initial OS that I had after the startup update, the bridge browser was fine, and I'm confident it will be again.

If browsing is your main consideration in the purchase decision and your BlackBerry Smartphone is satisfactory 80% of the time, you may want to think long and hard about whether you really want to spend the money, unless flash is very important to you. Flash may be the only significant gain for you.

[sid_kid]

Originally Posted by aiharkness

Flash may be the only significant gain for you.

I totally agree. I usually spend my browser time on news sites, mashable.com, cnet, and of course bbforums...and while the bridge browser isn't as fast as I would like (and yes i would agree painfully slow at times) most of the time I haven't found myself in a situation where speed was of great concern and I didn't have a wifi connection...flash is a major plus though...and one that i definitely have fallen in love with...

[eelect]

Bridged with 9650 browsing is pretty frustrating to say the least. i expect that to change in the future. Looks like rim wants to play nice guy with carriers so they get a warm adoption from them with 3G units coming. Thats my 2 cents

[ZombieBerry]

To be fair though, Bridge seemed to work better before the last OS upgrade. I hope and pray they bring it back to .1710 level of usability.

[daphne]

Originally Posted by ZombieBerry

To be fair though, Bridge seemed to work better before the last OS upgrade. I hope and pray they bring it back to .1710 level of usability.

My experience is the opposite. The Bride browser is faster and smoother since the OS upgrade.