The Motorola Xoom was launched early this year with a hardware and software combo rumored to dethrone Apple’s iPad series.
Loaded with Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), a new Tegra 2 chip and some of the best engineering a tablet can get, Motorola introduced a product that not only beat the iPad line, it buried it.
Looking for a tablet?? Spend your money wisely and buy the Motorola Xoom without considering any other options.
In a previous post, I looked at the iPad vs. the iPad 2.? While the successor to the iPad showed some changes to the design and the hardware inside, I still thought it was a bit premature to release to the public and showed only slight improvements.
The difference between the Motorola Xoom and iPad 2 is vast.? While some may argue that the hardware changes are minimal, the software contrast makes the Xoom a much better buy than its competitors.
Hardware: The Xoom has a slightly larger screen by .4″ sitting at 10.1″ which makes it .3 lbs heavier than the iPad 2.? It feels solid to the touch with a nice matted finish on the back and the weight was perfect for holding a device of that size.? The screen was just perfect supporting a larger resolution at 1280X800 which trumphs the iPad 2.? The resolution made websites, videos and apps look much more vivid, and natural on a tablet.
With a standard 32 GB storage space, the Xoom will also be coming with support for the SD card slot built into the tablet.? The iPad series till does not have support for any additional storage which irks me because tablets can be used as a primary device and should have the ability to move larger files between other personal computing devices.
I give this round to the Xoom.? It may be an insignificant amount larger and heavier, the hardware that comes with the Tegra 2 chip (dual core) beats out the A5 (dual core) in the iPad since the Tegra supports vector and 3D rendoring.
Software: The biggest difference in tablets today is the software.? The Xoom runs Google’s newest addition to their lineup: Honeycomb (Android 3.0).? Honeycomb is beautifully designed for tablets handling multi-tasking with no trouble and supports multiple tabs in browser.? The ability to sync and send links between any computer or tablet running the Chrome browser embarrasses Apple and their Safari counter.
The Motorola Xoom gets? a lot of heat for having software that came out too early for its hardware.? Currently, the Xoom does not support Flash or the SD card slot I mentioned above, but the update is coming soon for those features.? The iPad 2 will never see the day Flash comes to iOS devices nor will it be able to support it.
The new design for the Honeycomb OS on the Xoom is incredible.? The virtual keyboard was the best typing experience I’ve had on any touch screen device including my iPhone 4.? Rumor has it that Google leaked their cloud based music application which would go hand in hand with this device on WiFi.
The native support for an mini-HDMI out on the Xoom makes it simple to connect to a HDTV, and the hardware above (1 GHz dual core, 1 GB Ram, Tegra 2 graphics) make it super fast.
I do not care how behind Google’s marketplace may be compared to the Apple App Store…the core apps that make this device great is the same as any other App store I’ve used.
The Xoom also has support for a 4G card in the future.? Available on Verizon Wireless exclusively, once that update has been released, you can sure to expect even faster download and upload speeds.
Battery life on both are around the same sitting in between 9-11 hours based on usage.
X-Factor: The Xoom is $100 more than the iPad 2 (retail price) but there are sales at most technology retailers to make the price difference much more minimal.? The Xoom is completely different than the Android smartphone you have in your pocket, where as the iPad 2 is just a larger version of the iPhone 4 without as sharp of a display.
It’s a no brainier that the Xoom is the best tablet choice on the market.? With support for Flash and a SD card in the near future, the Motorola mobile device buries the competition without contest.
Integrate the tablet with your life schedule due to the native GMail and calendar apps Android 3.0 supports and you’ll quickly find how perfectly this device integrates into your daily routine.
