First pictures of the 4G BlackBerry PlayBook surface.

In February, when Jim Balsillie was still the co-CEO of Research in Motion, he had announced that the brand would be unveiling their PlayBooks that would be 4G capable. At the time of the announcement, Mike Lazaridis, former President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion had said, “The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is already being widely recognized for its superior performance, rich web experience, enterprise readiness and deep support for web standards and open development tools. We are now building on the BlackBerry PlayBook's many advantages with support for additional 4G networks that will allow enhanced business opportunities for carriers and developers and unparalleled mobile experiences for users.” However, at the time, there were no images available to visually please us. This appears to have changed to quite a large extent, as the first images of the BlackBerry PlayBook 4G have now made their way online.

A report by N4BB, who have got the images via CrackBerry Forums, states that these new pictures reveal quite a lot regarding what the upcoming tablets from Research in Motion have to offer. In one of the pictures, we can see that the tablet features a SIM card slot, while images of the screen show the Mobile Network icon. The report goes on to state that some of the new sections found on the PlayBook can be accessed only by using a dedicated data connection. Apart from this, the upcoming PlayBook will also feature a native BlackBerry Messenger client, which is built into the OS.

At the time of the announcement in February, RIM had stated that in addition to the Wi-Fi and 4G connectivity, each tablet would also support Bluetooth tethering, mobile hotspot that is a MiFi, smartphone or other portable device equipped to act as a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot, along with BlackBerry Bridge.

While no release date for the 4G variant of the BlackBerry PlayBook has been set in stone just yet, one can expect it to make its way to the shelves by the this quarter of 2012. Let us know your reactions about the BlackBerry PlayBook 4G and do you think that it will make an impact in the market?