LAS VEGAS: Research In Motion has made a bid to improve the fortunes of the PlayBook tablet by adding several key productivity features to the platform.

Among the most impressive new components in the PlayBook OS 2.0 is the contact system. While users can still manually enter contact info, the PlayBook is now also able to gather and organise information automatically. Services such as Twitter and LinkedIn can connect with the PlayBook and update a user profile directly to the tablet.

The result of this is something of a small dossier on many contacts. When looking for information on a colleague or trying to connect with a possible client or business contact this can save time in researching and data-mining before meetings.

This, however, depends on the user having full and active profiles on sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter. Without that cooperation from contacts, the contact page becomes a rather boring and empty window. It is also a feature best suited for business. RIM has been dogged in the past by its reputation as a business-only company, and this feature will do little to win over customers who first and foremost want a fun and enjoyable personal device.

Another interesting feature is the revamped scheduling system. While it might not seem like a big breakthrough, the presentation of the calendar itself is quite useful and impressive.

Small numbers indicate days where few appointments have been scheduled, while large numbers indicate days that have little free time left. With a quick glance, you can now tell when you should book that dentist appointment and when you should opt for a quick lunch at the desk.

For more detail on a day's plan, the Playbook sports a handy side menu. In addition to seeing how full a day is, you can view who the appointment is with and bring up contact information and messaging boxes directly from the calendar.

While the Playbook OS update may not contain any radical redesigns that make people forget about the likes of iOS and Android, it does contain some very nice productivity improvements which will appeal to BlackBerry veterans and enterprise users.

RIM has not released any high-end smartphones for the best part of a year, and is aiming to make up lost ground by launching three major handsets from the end of August.

V3 got some precious hands-on time with the Bold 9900, Torch 2 and Torch 9860 and, judging by first impressions, RIM looks to be back on track after an unsteady start to 2011.

RIM was particularly keen to show off the Bold Touch, which is a significant improvement over previous models in the range. Although the Touch retains the familiar candy bar form factor, numerous changes have been made to the design.

The Touch weighs in at 110g and is just 10.5mm thick, making it RIM's thinnest device to date. Premium materials have been used to craft the 9900, and it really shows. The high-end look is perfectly illustrated by the distinctive stainless steel frame and the space age back cover. This is definitely the best looking RIM device to date.

As the name suggests, the Bold Touch will be the first in the range to have touch-screen functionality. This allows users to touch applications to open them, swipe between home screens, as well as scroll and pinch-to-zoom when viewing web pages.

The responsiveness of the touch screen was impressive, but it remains to be seen how well touch input will actually work on a display that is only 2.8in in size.

RIM has always had one of the best Qwerty keyboards on the market, and the firm has made the letters on the Touch a little bit bigger and reduced the annoying clicking sound. Another impressive feature is browsing, which RIM claims is 40 per cent faster. Anyone who has used a Bold will know that web pages can take an age to load over 3G, so this is an overdue  improvement.

The Bold 9900 will ship with a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 768MB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. However, as the majority of smartphones now ship with dual-core processors and at least 1GB of RAM, RIM needs to improve in this area, much like HTC.


Meanwhile, we found the 3.7in Torch 9860 intriguing, although it is unlikely to make a significant dent in sales of the iPhone and high-end Android devices. Design-wise it is similar to the Google Nexus S, as it has a curved back.

RIM also showcased the BlackBerry Torch 2, which is more of a standard refresh. RIM has doubled the power of the handset and loaded BlackBerry 7 OS.

V3 will post full reviews of the BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900, Torch 2 and Torch 9860 soon.

A video demonstration of the Bold Touch is below: