Ontario's finance minister is loving RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook - 'so intuitive, so easy'

Ontario's Finance Minister, Dwight Duncan, was given an early BlackBerry PlayBook. And in tinkering with it, he has quickly come to love the Research in Motion tablet.

Quoth the Winnipeg Free Press:

"This thing is so intuitive and so easy that even a guy like me can make it work," Duncan said Thursday as he showed off the device in his office.

"This is fun," said a smiling Duncan as he played one game and then another. "I'm getting into dangerous territory now (because) I haven't played 'Tetris' on this yet."

Duncan has used the original iPad, not the newer iPad 2, but said he thinks the PlayBook will quickly become a market leader. "This is smaller, the graphics to me seem better and it's easier to handle and to stow as well," he said. "They were saying on the news these things could replace desktops and that doesn't surprise me in the least. It'll certainly replace my laptop."

The BlackBerry's screen size is seen as a detriment to some and a benefit to others; Apple's 10-inch iPad has obviously seen tremendous success, which makes most naturally think that's the winning size. But even tablets that have launched in both 7- and 10-inch formats have flopped—so really, there's still plenty of potential for a 7-inch to launch and stake its claim on that segment of the tablet market.

Good things have been said about RIM's tablet software, developed by QNX which it acquired last year, and about the fact that BlackBerries can tether and integrate seamlessly with the tablet, making enterprise uses far superior to what the iPad 2 can offer in most instances.

The device launches across North America on April 19 starting at $500 for a 16GB Wi-Fi version.