Motorola Xoom

[Tom Hendricks]

The Motorola Xoom, the first real challenge to Apple's iPad phenomenal hit will be available on March 27th. The Xoom, wifi only will be priced at $599.

Some specs:
Android Honeycomb
32GB hard drive
1GHz Tegra 2 processor
10.1" display

It will be available at Amazon, Best Buy, Costco, RadioShack, Staples and Walmart

There will be a free 4G LTE upgrade available at some later date.

I currently own a iPad, currently have no intent to upgrade to the iPad 2. I'm very happy with my iPad and don't see myself moving over to the Xoom. I have multiple friends with Android phones, they all seam very cheap and poorly made. I'm also not a fan of the Android OS. With that said, I'm looking forward to stopping by either Radio Shack or Staples to give this thing a look over. It looks very good and want to handle it for myself to get a real impression of it. I personally like competition, I think it drives companies to make better products.

Anyone considering getting the Xoom?

 

[The Fatman]

I have an HTC Glacier Android phone (also called the T-Mobile MyTouch 4G), and a lot of my co-workers and in-laws have Droid series phones, and I will disagree with you on build quality. Not saying given the dearth of android devices that some, even many of them aren't poorly made, but all the devices I see in use and deal with have exceptional build quality. Just IMHO, of course.

That said, I have no interest in the Xoom, and I wish I had gone with iPhone instead of Android. I love the idea of Android, but in practice, all that openness and choice just leads to a less intuitive user experience. I don't want to always worry about having too many widgets running, or apps installed, or things syncing too much... all of which can drain my battery in just 3 or 4 hours. I hate that, while there are a TON of apps in the market, there are just a tiny fraction of QUALITY apps in the Market (and almost no games worth having, short of Angry Birds). I hate that there is no simple, unified solution for music on Android like iTunes. I hate that we downloaded a silly guitar app for my daughter, and all our personal data was compromised because manufacturers don't update the handsets and hackers can exploit long-closed security loopholes (not to mention that with teh reduced vetting, that malicious code got into the Market at all!). Again, all that said, I totally get and understand the love for Android. I'm not going to say anyone is wrong for liking or preferring it. I can just say, for me, after using both in practice... Go ahead and make my decisions for me, Mr. Jobs

As for Xoom specifically compared to iPad, I hear mixed things. I dislike the 16x9 aspect ratio, which by all accounts means you will basically always use it in landscape mode. Other than that, it's damn comparable, hardware wise, to iPad 2 (more RAM and storage, weaker processor and graphics)... so why would I pay $100 more for a substandard user experience in the Android platform? For me to consider purchasing one, the wifi only model should be at least $100 less than iPad BEFORE carrier subsidies.

 

[clint g]

Agreed about android phones. I recently picked up the HTC Evo and I love it. The OS is awesome and the phone is top notch. The only downside is the battery life can be a bit short at times.

 

[Arrqh]

I'm holding off on buying a "real" tablet until at least the end of the year, but I have a Nook Color that's been hacked to run a semi-functional version of Honeycomb and I already like the OS better then what I've seen of the iPad.

The Xoom has a lot of rough edges because Motorola clearly wanted to push it out before the iPad2 was announced. But the tablet market is going to explode in the next few months and I think future products will be in a much better position.

From here. June looks like it'll be an interesting month!