The much-awaited update for Research in Motion's (RIM) PlayBook tablet computer finally arrived this week, which allows the device to process email independently.

Prior to the patch, overly-delayed according to many tech experts, PlayBook requires the assistance of a BlackBerry for users to access their email accounts.

The update, which came some ten months after RIM launched the iPad competitor last year, still fell short of what most everyone had expected, tech experts said.

For one, RIM overlooked to include the BlackBerry Messaging (BBM) function that was a hugely popular function of the once bestselling smartphone in the world.

Critics also lamented that RIM had not worked on PlayBook's possible integration with its enterprise server software.

This early, analysts were predicting that the PlayBook update will hardly move up its sales figures, which according to Reuters have yet to breach the one million mark as of November last year.

Only some 850,000 units were sold so far despite price reductions ordered by RIM, Reuters said.

In contrast, Apple's iPad has attracted more than 15 million new owners by the end of December last year and is projected to report record sales anew after the first quarter of the current year.

Tech experts are doubtful too if PlayBook could even compete closely once Apple issues the new iPad 3, which media reports said will hit the global in phase release this year, starting next month.

Overall, the new move coming from RIM was greeted by tech experts with almost perfunctory remarks, with gist boiling down into: "This should have been what PlayBook was meant to be."

Brushing aside the device's shortcomings, experts were paying more attention on its operating system, the QNX, which has been touted as the same platform that will power the BlackBerry 10 that RIM said will redefine the market this year.

Yet reinvigorating the once dominant tech company will greatly hinge on how app developers will respond to the RIM's mobile OS - whether they will sense business viability in the platform that will encourage them build apps for the system.

At the moment, the mobile app market is the largely the turf of Apple's iOS and Google's Android, with tech experts almost by default reserving the third spot to Microsoft's Windows 8, which is set to debut this year.

Notwithstanding the new PlayBook email feature, analysts are in agreement that the prospect remains dim for RIM, with Mike Abramsky of RBC Capital Markets cautioning that what RIM had missed out in the updates could turn off consumers, even those who were considered as avowed BlackBerry users.