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Gadgets that failed to impress in 2011

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CIOL Bureau
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BANGALORE, INDIA: RIM's PlayBook tablet can be described as one of the greatest disappointments in the blooming tablet market.

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Just eight months after the launch, RIM is selling its PlayBooks in India at more than 50 per cent discount (For the festive season).

Why Playbook failed to impress is because it needs a smartphone to access a cellular network and a BlackBerry to tap into RIM's popular BlackBerry Messenger chat platform or get secure emails.

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The 16GB version of the PlayBook is now available at Rs.13,490 in the festive offer, a more than 50 per cent discount from the regular price of Rs.27,990. The 32GB model is available at Rs.15,990 and the 64GB model is for Rs 24,490 in the festive offer, compared with regular prices of Rs 32,990 and Rs 37,990 respectively.

ALSO READ: HOT GAGDETS OF 2011

The BlacyBerry Playbook received negative reviews soon after its launch by influential technology reviewers who called the iPad competitor a rushed job that won't even provide RIM's vaunted email service.

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"RIM has just shipped a BlackBerry product that cannot do email. It must be skating season in hell," New York Times' David Pogue wrote in a review published soon after the PlayBook launch.

"I got the strong impression RIM is scrambling to get the product to market," Walt Mossberg, the widely followed business and consumer technology critic, wrote in a Wall Street Journal article headlined "PlayBook: a tablet with a case of codependency." However, the PlayBook did impress many reviewers for its well-documented capability to handle Flash websites and its ability to show one high-definition image -- a movie, for instance -- on a connected TV, while doing something else on its own screen. The two things the iPad cannot do.

Nokia Lumia 800

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Nokia's new hope - Lumia 800 - may be too late in the smartphone war dominated by Apple and Google, despite positive reviews by handset critics.

Will Nokia succeed with Rs..30k Lumia 800?

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Its first Windows model, the Lumia 800, has won little interest from consumers, with only two percent of Europeans saying they would pick it, according to a survey by Exane BNP Paribas.

Lumia 800 also lacks the front facing camera, thereby denying the video chat feature.Analysts said there was nothing particularly wrong with the sleek handsets, other than a software glitch on some models affecting battery life, but consumers were just not biting.

Smartphones using Microsoft software have just a 2 per cent market share, compared with Google Android at around 50 per cent and Apple at 15-20 per cent.

(With inputs from Reuters)

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