David Pogue

Listen, I?ll be straight with you. I realise that tablets are crazy hot right now, that 2011 is the year of the iPad clone and that every company and its brother is rushing one to market. But I?m sorry. I?m not going to review every one of the 85 tablets that will arrive this year; it?s only April, and I?ve already got tablet fatigue. I?m not going to review the Electrolux tablet, the Polaroid tablet, the Sunoco tablet, the Kellogg?s tablet…

The BlackBerry tablet, though, seems worth a look. The tech world?s been hyperventilating over this thing. It?s called the PlayBook, and it?s a seven-inch touch-screen tablet ($500, $600, and $700 for the 16-, 32- and 64-gigabyte models). The iPad, of course, is a 10-incher, but seven has its virtues. It?s much easier to hold with one hand, for example. In principle, you ought to be able to slip the PlayBook into the breast pocket of a jacket?but incredibly, the PlayBook is about half an inch too wide. Whoever muffed that design spec should be barred from the launch party.

Still, the PlayBook looks reat: hard rubberised back, brilliant, super-responsive multitouch screen, solid heft (?0.9). Its software is based on an operating system called QNX, which Research In Motion, the BlackBerry?s maker, bought for its industrial stability.

Nor is QNX the only other company that lent a hand. Palm and Apple were also involved, although they didn?t know it. The PlayBook software is crawling with borrowed ideas. For example, to remove or rearrange apps, you hold your finger down on one app icon until all icons begin to pulse (hello, iPad!). And to close a program, you swipe your finger upward from the bottom bezel to turn all app windows into ?cards,? and then flick one upward off the screen (hello, Palm Pre!).

There are no buttons on the front, and the top edge has only On, Play/ Pause and volume keys. Instead, you navigate by swiping your finger from the black border, into the screen itself.

Swiping upward reveals your app icons. Swiping left or right cycles among open multitasking apps. And swiping down reveals an app?s toolbar, if it has one.

Unfortunately, there?s no way of knowing beforehand if a toolbar exists, so you often swipe futilely and feel silly. Similarly, if app icons completely fill the home screen, you can swipe upward to reveal more ? but you won?t know if there are more until you swipe, because no scrollbar appears beforehand to let you know there?s more below the screen.

With a special HDMI cable, you can hook it up to a TV or projector, for PowerPoint presentations. The PlayBook can show two different things. On the TV, the audience sees your slides; on the PlayBook, you see the PowerPoint cheat sheet of notes and slide thumbnails.

The PlayBook does two impressive things that its rivals?the iPad and the Android tablets?can only dream about.

The first cool feature has to do with loading the tablet with your music, photos and music. Unfortunately, there?s no iTunes-like software to do this automatically. You have to drag files manually from your computer into the PlayBook?s folders. But once you?ve set up this process using a USB cable, you can do it thereafter over Wi-Fi?wirelessly.

Second, there?s a wild, wireless Bluetooth connection feature called BlackBerry Bridge. In this setup, the PlayBook acts as a giant viewing window onto the contents of a BlackBerry phone. Whatever e-mail, calendar, address book and instant messages are on the BlackBerry now show up on the PlayBook?s much roomier screen.

BlackBerry Bridge is supposed to appeal to the corporate network administrators, because they can deploy PlayBooks without having to worry about security breaches.

What you do get are built-in versions of Documents to Go, for creating and editing Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. And you get a nice Web browser that plays Flash videos online, which the iPad still can?t do. The PlayBook?s front and back cameras can record stabilised stills and high-definition video.

You should also be aware that this PlayBook is Wi-Fi only. You don?t have the option to get online via a cellular network, as you can with the rivals from Apple, Motorola and Samsung. (RIM says that 4G versions of the PlayBook will arrive by the end of 2011.)

The PlayBook, then, is convenient, fast and coherently designed. But in its current half-baked form, it seems almost silly to try to assess it, let alone buy it.

Remember, the primary competition is an iPad?the same price, but much thinner, much bigger screen and a library of 300,000 apps. In that light, does it make sense to buy a fledgling tablet with no built-in e-mail or calendar, no cellular connection, no videochat, Skype, no Notes app, no GPS app, no videochat, no Pandora radio and no Angry Birds?

If all of this gets fixed, the apps arrive, and the PlayBook can survive this year?s onslaught of rival tablets, then it may one day wind up in the pantheon of greats. For now, there are too many features that live only in RIM?s playbook?and not enough in its PlayBook.