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Motorola Xoom Lands to Hardware Fanfare, But Honeycomb's 'Meh'

by Terrence O'Brien on February 24, 2011 at 12:20 PM

Xoom
The first batch of reviews of Motorola's hyped-to-the-gills Xoom have landed. And, while we wait for our own supposedly iPad-killing unit to arrive, we thought it was worth listening to what everyone else is saying about the device, as well as Google's new tablet-specific version of Android, dubbed Honeycomb. On the whole, reviews have been positive, with almost every outlet praising the combination of hardware and software as a serious competitor to the iPad. With the iPad 2 expected to land in the very near future, though, it remains to be seen just how competitive the Xoom will actually be.

From a horsepower standpoint, the Xoom is a monster. According to CNET, "System performance purrs along, even with multiple browser tabs open, Pandora playing in the background, and e-mail notifications popping up." This is largely thanks to the dual-core Tegra 2 from NVIDIA and 1GB of RAM. That power does come at a price, however. Walt Mossberg managed only 7.5 hours playing back video at full brightness. (The iPad, on the other hand, provided 11.5.) And, while everyone is excited about the promised free LTE upgrade, our friends at Engadget did find one "feature" to gripe about: the MicroSD slot. Turns out that, while there is a place to pop in a 32GB card, the Xoom can't access it right now. Hopefully that will be fixed with a software update sooner rather than later.

But the real story is Honeycomb. We won't lie; we're a little confused by many of the reviews. For the most part, reviewers are positive, but they complain about some odd things. For instance, David Pogue can't seem to wrap his head around why Quick Settings for wireless radios and brightness might be accessed from an icon in the bottom right-hand corner and "the rest of the settings by tapping a top-strip icon." (We assume that Pogue is talking about the more extensive Settings app, which can be found in the applications menu. It can also be accessed from the Quick Settings popup in the bottom-right corner, as well.) CNET lauds Honeycomb for bucking the trend of Android tablets that behave "too much like a smartphone," only to later lament that the "added complexity and sophistication is a double-edged sword." Engadget also found some of the navigation elements confusing, like the disappearing/reappearing apps button and the mutating back button. But the new, more desktop-like browser and the true multi-tasking operation are universally loved, even if Honeycomb lacks support for Flash at the moment (though that should be changing soon).

All are in agreement that Honeycomb and Google's tablet strategy still have a ways to go, but the Xoom is a compelling product nevertheless. Engadget says that "it outclasses the iPad in many ways," and Pogue suggests that "Motorola should be congratulated for the Xoom." We're not going to congratulate Motorola on the price -- $600 with a two-year contract, or $800 without -- but we'll wait to pass judgment until we get our mitts on a Xoom of our own.

Tags: android, AndroidHoneycomb, google, honeycomb, motorola, MotorolaXoom, tablet pcs, TabletPcs, tablets, top, xoom, xoom+wifi+only, xoomwifionly

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