Today at Mobile World Congress 2011, RIM announced two new 4G-ish varieties of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. In the second half of the year, there will be one PlayBook that runs on LTE and Wi-Fi, and another that runs on HSPA+ and Wi-Fi, in addition to the WiMAX version headed to Sprint.

The rest of the specs on either version stay the same: the 7-inch 1024 x 600 display, the 5 megapixel camera on the back and 3 megapixel camera on the front, the dual-core 1 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, and new operating system built for multitasking and multimedia. Take a look at our hands-on video with the BlackBerry PlayBook for the deep dive.

The news is somewhat expected, seeing as RIM is the type to support as many networks as possible, and LTE and HSPA+ are far more global standards than WiMAX. It’s too bad no carriers stepped up to the plate and announced that they would be selling the LTE or HSPA+ PlayBook, but I think it’s safe to assume T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon will all be biting sooner or later.

[via RIM]