“Too-Small” BlackBerry PlayBook Gets Pricing Details

Last month, Steve Jobs said his market darling iPad is better than any would-be competitor simply because of its 9.7” size. At a more diminutive 7”, he said, the BlackBerry PlayBook is too much of an in-betweener—bigger than a smartphone but smaller than an e-reader, and not really useful as either.

Well, we’re getting closer to checking out the device for ourselves. It’s set to debut in the first quarter of 2011. Today, Research in Motion (RIM) co-CEO Jim Balsillie revealed some pricing information—namely, that it will be “very competitively priced” at “under $500” In North America.

Recall that the Playbook features a 1GHz dual-core Cortex A9 CPU, 1GB or RAM, a 7" display, eReader functionality, full document editing, full pairing with BlackBerry devices, a front 3-megapixel camera and a rear 5-megapixel camera, full HD video, and 1080p HDMI output. For more information, check out the BlackBerry PlayBook page.

You can also check out the preview video: