RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie finally gave us a crucial bit of information about the BlackBerry Playbook this morning: price, or at least a threshold. According to a Korean interview, Balsillie said that RIM’s 7-inch tablet will be “very competitively priced” with Bloomberg quoting the man saying that it will be “under” $500 when it hits North America in the first quarter of 2011, expanding globally in Q2. A price that should at least match the 9.7-inch WiFi-only iPad (16GB) and undercut the 7-inch 3G Galaxy Tab which goes on sale on Verizon tomorrow for $599.99 . Thing is, by the time Q1 rolls around we’re going to be looking at many, many more viable tablet alternatives including a likely Apple refresh. BlackBerry PlayBook to cost ‘under’ $500 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Nov 2010 01:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink