Motorola Xoom gets reviewed

Motorola’s upcoming tablet Xoom has garnered a lot of attention from the media and the consumer for a couple of main reasons. The big one of course is that Xoom will be the flagship device to carry Google’s Android Honeycomb that has been specifically designed for tablet and it is essentially Google’s response to Apple’s iOS.


Motorola’s upcoming tablet Xoom has garnered a lot of attention from the media and the consumer for a couple of main reasons. The big one of course is that Xoom will be the flagship device to carry Google’s Android Honeycomb that has been specifically designed for tablet and it is essentially Google’s response to Apple’s iOS. The second, less flattering reason for Xoom’s popularity is the hefty price-tag of USD 800 and somewhat general consensus that the data-plan with Verizon is unfair. So, due to the nature of competition and the asking price for the device, Motorola’s Xoom has a lot to prove.

CrunchGear, AnandTech and Engadget have posted their opinion of Motorola Xoom and they all seem to agree on a few points. The good bits about the device that everyone agrees upon include impressive hardware under the hood and notable OS interface improvements. Factors that let the reviewers down include lack of applications to take advantage of powerful hardware, stray quirky behavior of the OS that makes it feel rushed and the mighty price-tag.

CrunchGear
CrunchGear’s John Biggs noticed good things about Motorola Xoom, which includes fast-performance and nice display. He found limited improvements with Honeycomb over its predecessors and the media-playback capabilities less than satisfactory. He concludes that Xoom is a worthy competitor to the iPad as  a device for media playback and web surfing. However, he goes on to advise users to wait for more Honeycomb devices to emerge in the market, before signing up for Android.
engadget
Engadget’s impression of the device were not different, with the highs of the device including impressive hardware and most polished version of Android. Having said that, the reviewer concludes that in spite of being the most polished version of OS yet, it still feels buggy and rushed due to glitches when performing certain tasks and the UI layout of certain apps. Speaking of apps, engadget second CruchGear’s grievance over the lack of application to take advantage of the new OS and the powerful hardware packed under the hood.
AnandTech 
AnandTech's reviewer found UI design improvements to be quite impressive and when compared to iOS, Google’s Android is ultimately more productive due to better implementation of multitasking for apps and better notification system compared to its competition. On a less positive note, the reviewer notice choppy animation and that certain elements of the OS seem rushed. Instability of apps and no support for SD cards were some of the other chinks pointed out in the review. Also, the review notes that after considering the asking price for the device, the screen resolution and contrast ratio leave a lot to be desired.

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