Research in Motion (RIM) has announced that its tablet computer, the BlackBerry PlayBook, will hit the UK shores during the second quarter of next year.

In an interview with Digitimes, director of RIM for the Asia Pacific region, confirmed the UK release time of the PlayBook, along with a price tag of $500 (£313).

It means that Brits will have to wait until summer to get their hands on the RIM’s tablet computer. It may be noted here that the device will be released earlier in the US, sometime between January and March.

The BlackBerry PlayBook has a consumer sounding name, but it will primarily target the corporate market. It means it will try to snatch some of the market share from Cisco Cius.

The 7-inch touchscreen of the device offers a resolution of 1024 by 600 pixels and features support for Webkit, Java and Adobe’s Flash, and dual high-definition cameras- one at the back and another at the front for video conferencing.

But, the BlackBerry PlayBook could face some serious threat from Apple’s potential iPad 2, which is expected to come out in January.