Long rumored and talked about everywhere was the question of when a Blackberry tablet would hit the market.

Of all places, I actually remember first hearing about this on The Howard Stern Show one morning while driving to a meeting. My biggest question was how they were going to build a sleek tablet and keep the integrated keyboard that Blackberry is so famous for. Guess what? They didn’t keep it.

The Blackberry Playbook, as it is known, was unveiled at CES and you should have seen the lines of people trying to get a first look at it or touch it. I was lucky enough to get a hands-on demo from one of the product specialists.

After the demo, I got a chance to play with it a bit myself and I was impressed.

I’m not sure why there is a trend of every tablet being smaller than the Apple iPad. It was the first thing I noticed about the Playbook.

As someone who appreciates design and user interfaces, I can report that this has both. Instead of a home button, you swipe up from the bottom of the screen. Want the keyboard to come up at any time? Swipe diagonally from the lower left corner. It is sleek, black and impressive. Apps run in the background and switching between them is clear and easy. I was also impressed to hear that it can run Flash and AIR, so many apps that we currently use on our desktops will easily port over.

As an iPad lover myself, what I loved the most about the Playbook was the fact that it has two built-in cameras. This means that out of the box it can do video conferencing and video recording, two things that are sorely missing on other tablets. After taking a few photos with it, I was impressed at how well it does… and I’m sure that it will only get better in future releases.

The tablet wars are officially underway.