The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet 4G will be carried exclusively by Sprint, the wireless carrier said Wednesday. The announcement came during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where a slew of tablets are being unveiled. This lot includes the much-hyped Motorola Xoom, a tablet to be sold by Verizon Wireless, which will use a version of Google's Android operating system designed with tablets in mind.
Research In Motion said in September that the 7-inch PlayBook was in the works, but has been vague on details about price and availability. A 3G version of the PlayBook is due out the first quarter of this year.
Sprint did not announce the tablet's cost, but did say it is "expected to be available ... in the summer."
While some of the tablet's details are known — it will use a new operating system, not RIM's standard OS for its BlackBerry smart phones, the 4G version will have a 1 GHz dual-core processor and 1 GB of RAM — RIM has been very elusive about more information about the tablet in general. Wednesday night at a press event where several tablets were shown by manufacturers, RIM had a PlayBook to show — but kept it behind glass, not to be touched by those wanting to see it.
