RIM's entry into the tablet market, the PlayBook, has been rumored to land some time around March of next year, but now an analyst is claiming that that date may end up getting pushed back.  Shaw Wu, analyst at Kaufman Bros., has heard that the PlayBook is currently getting just a few hours of juice out of its battery, compared to the 7 hours that the Galaxy Tab gets and the 10 hours that the iPad claims.  The cause of the purportedly bad battery life?  Wu believes that it's due to the fact that QNX was designed for use in times when a user wouldn't need to worry about battery life, like in a vehicle.  If the PlayBook does end up getting pushed back, Wu thinks that it'll finally land some time in May 2011.

There's no real hard evidence to support Wu's claims, so be sure to take this news with a grain or two of salt.  Still, if it's true, a delay like this could be bad news for the PlayBook.  We're expecting a wave of Honeycomb-powered Android tablets to begin hitting in February or March and a sequel to the iPad in April, meaning that if the PlayBook is pushed back to May, it'll arrive quite a bit later than its main competitors.  Considering that the PlayBook is RIM's first entry into the tablet market, I'm not sure that they can afford to lose sales.  My guess?  RIM knows that they can't afford to wait forever, meaning that we'll see the PlayBook launch in Q1 like we've heard all along.

Via BGR, Forbes