RIM’s Playbook tablet gets poor reviews, Telstra to launch Motorola Xoom tablet in May

Research In Motion’s big shot at breaking the dominance of the Apple iPad appears to have fallen flat, with early reviews of its Playbook tablet device suggesting a lack of apps could hurt sales.

The tablet, which goes on sale in the United States tonight, is seen as RIM’s chance to strike back at Apple, which has seized the lead in the tablet in the market with the iPad and damaged sales of RIM’s Blackberry with its iPhone.

A release date for Australia has not been set.

However, early reviews of the Playbook have been decidedly lacklustre. While the tablet’s design and user interface have been praised, the distinct lack of key features – notably an email client and the massive range of apps that Apple offers – has given reviews an “unfinished feel”.

Walt Mossberg from the Wall Street Journal’s influential All Things Digital blog was one who praised the PlayBook’s user interface, describing it as “smooth and fast, and makes excellent use of multitouch gestures.”

“An area at the bottom of the screen holds the icons, which are divided into sections like “All,” “Media,” “Games” and “Favorites.” When you have multiple apps open, large images of them appear at the top of the screen, and you can scroll though them. It’s a very clean, attractive approach.”

But as he points out, the bald numbers don’t stack up when it comes to apps.

“Unlike the iPad, which can run almost all of the 350,000 iPhone apps, the PlayBook can’t run any of the 27,000 BlackBerry apps. It will launch with only about 3,000 apps designed for tablets, compared with 65,000 tablet-optimised iPad apps.”

Laptop Magazine‘s Mark Spoonauer has a similar take.

“It’s not really a matter of too little, too late with the BlackBerry PlayBook. If anything, RIM’s first tablet feels as if it [were] rushed to market. The PlayBook has a well-designed interface and plenty of power under the hood for serious multitasking. The sharp screen, high-quality cameras, and loud speakers all impress as well.”

“However, the software was buggy during testing, there’s no video chat option yet, and App World just doesn’t have a lot of compelling options right now.”

Of course, the RIM Playbook isn’t the only device trying to catch the iPad.

This morning, Telstra announced that it will launch the new Motorola tablet, called the Xoom, in May, although a specific date has not been announced.

The device, which is the first to run on the Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) platform, will feature a 10.1-inch, high definition display, front-facing and rear-facing cameras and one gigabyte of RAM.

In other tablet news, Apple has launched legal action against Samsung, claiming it has “slavishly copied” Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

Apple’s lawsuit, which was filed last Friday, takes specific aim at the design of the Samsung Galaxy phone and tablet, which Apple says have changed recently to take on an appearance similar to Apple products.

“Even the icons in earlier versions of the Samsung smart phones looked different because they had a variety of shapes – and did not appear as a field of square icons with rounded corners,” the lawsuit says.

Kim Titus, a Samsung representative, said the company would “actively” fight the lawsuit.

“Samsung’s development of core technologies and strengthening our intellectual property portfolio are keys to our continued success,” Titus told Reuters.