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PlayBook 4G tablet cancelled for Sprint

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After months of silence and a delay in its release, the 4G PlayBook is now officially axed for the Sprint network

Back in January, reports came in about a 4G PlayBook for the Sprint network which was supposed to launch sometime during May, but was expectedly delayed for unknown reasons.

Now, Sprint has officially dropped plans for the 4G PlayBook all together, according to WSJ. As for why the network decided to axe the BlackBerry tablet, Sprint representative Paget Alves claims that providing more tablets in an already saturated market would hurt costumers more than it would help.

“There are so many tablet in the market, it creates confusion for the average costumer,” said Alves.

Regardless, Sprint reaffirms that they are still in good relations with RIM. The network still offers a fair selection of BlackBerry phones and related devices.

RIM’s official response to the matter was tepid, according to Electronista. The Canadian company may now be focusing on its LTE-enabled PlayBook for AT&T and Verizon instead. “Testing of BlackBerry 4G models is already underway and we plan to enter labs for network certifications in the US and other international markets this fall,” said RIM. Even with dropped support from America’s third largest cellular network, it appears that RIM will continue to push its cellular-capable PlayBook plans anyway.

The Sprint PlayBook news comes one month after the network’s supposed breakup with webOS-related platforms from HP.

The 7-inch BlackBerry PlayBook was released in the U.S. mid- April with a dual-core 1GHz TI OMAP 4430 CPU, 1GB RAM and front and rear cameras. The tablet had mixed reviews upon its launch.

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Allen Ngo, 2011-08-13 (Update: 2012-05-26)