BlackBerry Playbook: Doomed?

A lot of companies have put out tablets, and the critical response has been, almost universally, blah at best, unless you’re the Dell Inspiron Duo, which was driven off of most gadget sits with torches and pitchforks.

Research In Motion recently put the Blackberry PlayBook up for review, and, well, the response was not what we call “enthusiastic”. Or even “friendly.”

According to the CEO of RIM, though, that’s because critics don’t understand the desire of Blackberry users for a crippled product.

We really wish we were joking, but when confronted with the PlayBook’s limited number of apps, total lack of ability to connect to a cellular network, and not even having an email client at launch, CEO Jim Balsillie said the critics were ignoring BlackBerry’s fan base, you know, what they should be doing instead of comparing the device to its competitors.

He also denied that they’d rushed a device to market, never mind that critics got upwards of three software updates during the time they were putting the device through its paces.

To be fair, at least the email client will be added via update fairly shortly, but still, it’s never a good sign when the CEO basically says his userbase is too stupid to demand basic features.