Here in the States, RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook hasn’t exactly been greeted with open arms. In fact, even Sprint, the only carrier to release the tablet thus far, is only carrying a Wi-Fi 16GB version, with 32GB and 64GB models left in the dust. Plus, Verizon teetered back and forth over the PlayBook for a while, only recently deciding to move forward with the slate.
Unfortunately for RIM, things aren’t looking any better overseas, as O2 UK today announced that the carrier won’t be offering the PlayBook to customers. The notification came straight to consumers who had chosen to receive updates from the carrier about the PlayBook. Officially, O2 said, “unfortunately there are some issues with the end to end customer experience.”
O2 neglected to give any further details, but we have a couple ideas of our own. First off, the PlayBook was built up way too much. RIM initially promised that all of the big three carriers would distribute the slate, but when it launched in April, pink, blue and red were all hesitant. This probably had something to do with the lack of a native email client, which RIM has promised to deliver in a future software update. But either way, the PlayBook felt half-baked, and even rushed, and it wouldn’t surprise us if O2 felt the same way.
[via BGR]