The Motorola XOOM is a powerful tablet that offers nearly all the traditional features of a desktop pc, but it's in a 10.1 inch tablet that's just half an inch thick. I have the pleasure of supporting 3 of them at work right now. So far this would be my choice for Best Tablet 2012.
Who makes it: Motorola
Price Range: $380-$450 for wi-fi only version. 3G and 4G XOOM's can run as much as $800 depending on if you sign up for a 2 year data contract from a cellular provider. This review is on the Wi-Fi only version of the Motorola XOOM (which is all I've worked with so far).
Who's it for: This a hardcore tablet. It's got a lot of power and features. It's perfectly suited for home and corporate users who want the desktop experience right in the palm of their hand, however if you're just trying to browse the internet and read some ebooks there are more affordable tablets out there.
Owner Reviews: Read XOOM Owner Reviews
Motorola XOOM Hardware Features
The XOOM isn’t playing around when it comes to hardware. It’s beefy. Motorola popped in a dual core 1 ghz nVidia Tegra 2 processor, 1 GB of DDR2 Ram, 32 GB’s of internal storage and a 10 hour battery (and that’s 10 hours of actually using the tablet)! That’s a lot of power for a tablet.
Motorola didn't skimp on wireless connectivity either. The XOOM comes with 802.11 N Wi-Fi and it also supports A, B and G signal types as well. Blue-tooth is also included so you’ll be able to use accessories like headsets or even connect it to your hands-free blue-tooth system in your car (which is great for those turn by turn directions played via your car speakers).
The nVidia Tegra 2 Powers the Motorola Xoom
Camera’s can be found on the front and back of the XOOM. The front facing camera is a 2 mega-pixel camera that’s perfect for video chatting via Skype or Google Talk. The rear facing camera is 5 mega-pixels and can record videos in HD (720P). Your recorded HD movies can be played directly on an HDTV since the XOOM has a built-in HDMI port! The XOOM has 2 speakers right on the back near the top so you’ll be able to listen to music and movies in stereo.
The physical weight of the XOOM is about 1.6 lbs and it measures 9.8 x 6.6 x 0.5 (just half an inch thick). The XOOMs display is a 10.1 inch wide screen that displays 1080P Full HD movies (1280 x 800 pixels). This is one of the largest displays you’re going to find on any tablet out there!
Let’s take a look at the XOOM connections. On top you’ve got a 3.5 mm headphone jack used for plugging in speakers or headphones. Right next to the headphone jack there’s a miniSD slot. You can add miniSD cards if you need more than 32 GB of storage. Over to the top left you’ve got your volume controls and power button (actually on back). On the bottom the XOOM has 1 MicroUSB port used for Internet tethering and transferring pictures/videos to a desktop or laptop. The XOOMs power connection is located right next to the MicroUSB port.
Motorola XOOM Software Features
The Motorola XOOM features the Android Honeycomb 3.0 OS (is upgradable to 3.2). The Honeycomb OS is not only extremely
One of our Motorola Xoom's
“fluid” and smooth, but it looks really cool, kind of holographic.
The XOOM allows you to setup 5 “home screens”. Each of these home screens can contain different applications and widgets. While this isn’t a big deal in the corporate environment it does make sharing the XOOM at home with other people much easier. Speaking of widgets...you can add dozens of widgets on each home screen. These widgets are scrollable (for example you can scroll through emails on the email widget), stackable and now re-sizable!
Unlike the iPad, the XOOM completely supports Adobe Flash (v. 10.2), so you won’t be limited to viewing just half of the sites on the Internet. You should know that flash content uses the battery almost twice as fast. So your 10 hours if internet browsing becomes 5 if you're on flash rich websites.
Multi-touch gestures are there too, for example , you can use 2 fingers to pinch zoom in and expand (zoom out) any website, picture or movie.
Email: You can add as many corporate or personal email accounts as you want. Our XOOM users here at work have Microsoft Exchange and gmail accounts configured on their XOOMs. So far it works perfectly.
XOOM is Multi-tasker. You can download music, files, watch a video or play a game all at the same time, there’s no need to wait for something to finish. Tabbed web browsing is also available in the XOOM. It's just like your desktop.
The Android Market gives you access to hundreds of thousands of Apps, Games, Books and more. Some are free and some cost anywhere from $1 - $5 (usually). Now, with the new Android 3.2 release for the XOOM you can also rent movies directly from the Android Market (and these are new movies, as soon as they are released to DVD). Google apps and technologies are found throughout the XOOM (and they work flawlessly with the exception of Google Earth at this time). You can video and voice chat using Google talk (over a Wi-Fi connection) or pull up a 3D Google map and get spoken turn-by-turn directions if you’re out walking or in your car.
