Here’s how you steal a truckload of BlackBerry Playbooks

Times are just not good for RIM’s BlackBerry Playbook. First, they make the Canadian-based company lose quite a lot of money and now this.

A “well-orchestrated” heist, as the Police describes it, has taken place in Indiana. A semi-truck fully loaded with BlackBerry Playbook tablets has been stolen, while the driver was taking a refreshing break.

And the result? A total of 5,200 gone missing with a reported wholesale value of $1.7 million. That hurts.

The Police and FBI say this wasn’t just any robbery, but a professional heist that took only 13 minutes to pull off. The authorities are looking into a bunch of evidences, including a video surveillance footage, fingerprints and DNA recovery samples in hopes to solve the case faster.

And if you are tempted to get your hands on a stolen Playbook, hoping for a cheaper deal, don’t be. A RIM spokeswoman has said that all tablets have been blocked from downloading any updates from RIM and on top of that all the serial numbers have been entered into the US national law enforcement database.

HTC Vivid paid us a visit, here’s the hands-on [VIDEO]

The third member of AT&T’s rather impressive LTE lineup made it to our office. The HTC Vivid surely has presence – even when dressed in a stealthy black color scheme. With a massive 4.5? screen and a solid metal back, the smartphone cannot help but be noticed.

Now on with a look at the spec sheet. The HTC Vivid packs two Scorpion cores, clocked at 1.2 GHz and a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset. There is a gig of RAM and 16GB of built-in memory on board, which can be expanded via a microSD card. Like we already mentioned above, the HTC Vivid features a 4.5? S-LCD screen with the familiar qHD resolution. The 8MP camera with dual LED flash is capable of recording 1080p videos. A 1.3MP front-facing unit will help you with the video calls. The LTE network compatibility of the HTC Vivid is complemented by the usual set of options, which we’ve come to expect from a device of this stature.

The HTC Vivid measures are massive. They are 128.8 x 67.1 x 11.2 mm, while the device’s weight is the whopping 177 grams. A 1620 mAh battery is in charge of keeping the smartphone going.

HTC Vivid live shots

There are absolutely no surprises in the software department of the HTC Vivid. The device runs Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread, dressed in HTC Sense 3.0 – we’ve seen this combination on quite a few HTC smartphones by now. Below is a video of the device in action.

A full review of the HTC Vivid is in the works. Stay tuned!