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Last month a leaked image from Office Depot showed the 16GB WiFi PlayBook listed at $499. Today RIM has revealed the official pricing and launch date which proves the Office Depot leak was in fact legitimate.
The BlackBerry PlayBook with WiFi will be available in three models including 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of storage. The price reflects the level of storage and will be $499, $599, or $699 respectively, although some retailers could offer a discount on those MSRP prices.
As for when you can get one, the official launch date has been set as April 19, but pre-orders begin today. If you want one then just visit a Best Buy, Best Buy Mobile, or Future Shop and get your name on the list.
If you’d rather just stroll into a store and buy one on April 19 there are 20,000+ outlets expected to stock the PlayBook come launch day across the U.S. and Canada. For the U.S. that includes the usual suspects of AT&T, Best Buy, Office Depot, RadioShack, Staples, Sprint, and Verizon.
RIM hopes to take on the iPad 2 and Xoom with its first tablet aimed at both consumers and business users. We’ve recently got some hands-on time with the 7″ device and walked away suitably impressed. It’s well-built, the smaller display makes one-handed use easier, and performance is solid based on a pre-release operating system. However, a 7″ display may be too small for some, and there’s a question mark over just how many and the overall quality of the apps on offer. We won’t really know if RIM has delivered in the apps department until a few months after launch.
If you are already decided on picking up the PlayBook then we urge you to pre-order one. We learned in January that RIM had tight restrictions on where the PlayBook could be manufactured meaning only 200,000 a month are being produced. The launch stock is thought to be around 1 million units.
