BlackBerry PlayBook Battery Issues Not Real According to RIM

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A couple of days ago we saw a rather disturbing report claiming that the BlackBerry PlayBook, RIM’s first QNX tablet, expected to launch in March 2011, was going to be delayed to May or even later due to certain battery issues. The news came from an analyst looking at the PlayBook and if true then RIM would have been in danger of actually losing out on potential tablet buyers next year due to this unforeseen delay.

RIM didn’t stand by watching how the world was reacting to the news and quickly corrected the analyst. According to Research in Motion there is no battery issue with the tablet and we can expect the device to launch according to schedule. Here’s what RIM stated for the record according to Frobes:

“Any testing or observation of battery life to date by anyone outside of RIM would have been performed using pre-beta units that were built without power management implemented. RIM is on track with its schedule to optimize the BlackBerry PlayBook’s battery life and looks forward to providing customers with a professional grade tablet that offers superior performance with comparable battery life.”

The denial above does suggest that the first PlayBook units came with certain battery issues, but it also says that the actual version that will hit stores will come with “superior performance with comparable battery life” without mentioning any precise details about battery performance.

All we need now is to see exactly what RIM will be able to offer us in terms of battery power, especially since its tablet will most likely compete against the iPad 2, and we definitely expect Apple to tune up its battery performance too, not to mention a plethora of Android tablets running a proper tablet OS, Android Honeycomb, and, presumably, pretty decent battery life.

What tablet are you going to buy next year? An iPad, an Android device or a PlayBook?