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Video review
Until now, Android tablets have shipped with various versions of the OS, all of which have been designed to power mobile phones. The Xoom is the first to run Android 3.0, nicknamed Honeycomb, which is made specifically for use with tablets.
Although plastic-backed, the 10.1in Xoom is easy to hold and feels tough enough to soak up knocks, but one obvious design fail is the placement of the headphone socket mid-way along the upper side, perfectly placed to dangle a lead over the screen while watching video.
Plug me in
Round one to the iPad then, but the Xoom fights back with a volley of useful connections: mini-HDMI and USB sockets, and a SIM-card slot.
The customisable, cluttered craziness of Honeycomb’s five home screens is a welcome antidote to the iPad’s sterile grid. Widgets work especially well, letting you scan emails, flick through a calendar, see who’s Facebooking and browse YouTube at a glance.
That large display gives the home screens room to breathe. Each corner is dedicated to a set of controls: Google and voice search, app controls, the Home, Back and Menu buttons (which on the the Xoom are onscreen only), and a notification area with pop-up alerts.
Multitasking master
Multitasking is handled neatly. Tap the multitasking button and a menu of the five latest apps appears on the left edge of the screen. Select a thumbnail to switch to that app. Dual core innards mean the Xoom has power to spare, and it can easily juggle five apps – even games – at once. Get ready for multi-tasking surprises, like when a navigation voice direction suddenly cuts through the Angry Birds soundtrack (on second thoughts, better not play Angry Birds while driving).
This has to be the future of tablet computing – once Google gets the occasional freezes and crashes under control.
Un-appy tabby
It’s very early days for Honeycomb apps – and it shows. The best-selling apps on the Market are an incredibly buggy CNN app, an Angry Birds port that judders and a Pulse News Reader that adds nothing to the Apple version. But the potential is here – the 3D platformer Cordy shows beautiful, flicker-free, responsive apps are possible.
The Xoom’s main 5MP camera is pretty good. Detail and exposure are much better than most mobiles and 720p video is sharp and really colourful. But the camera app is ungainly, with way too many scene modes, no touch-to-focus and terrible shutter lag. The LED flash is better than nothing (just) and the 2MP front-facing webcam is fine for video chat. But is this important in a 10in tablet? Stuff says: no.
High-definitely
There’s better news in other media quarters though. The wider screen has the resolution to play 720p video as nature intended (trumping the iPad 2) but is a bit slower to respond than Apple’s tablet. Colours look great and HD video is smooth and solid. Somehow, though, Motorola has managed to find a screen that’s even more of a fingerprint magnet than Apple’s.
Tabbed browsing is a hit. A drop-down menu lets you search pages, find downloads and add a private-browsing Incognito tab, but Flash support is still in the list of ‘coming soon’ promises. When it comes to music, in many ways Google out-Apples the iPad with a gorgeous Cover Flow-style 3D parade of covers, smooth animations and large playback controls. However, we’re still big fans of Apple’s iTunes desktop client, which still has no equal for the Android platform.
Review continues after the break…
Currently marred by some buggy firmware, the Xoom is nonetheless a serious tablet contender, and once those bumps have been ironed out, all that remains is to stock that Android Market with some quality apps.
The First Hour
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3
Honeycomb: like Android crossed with Windows
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4
Whoops. First app crashes – Facebook is down
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13
Google widgets and apps look fantastic
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31
Tabbed Chrome browsing rocks but where’s my Flash?
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45
Give the glary, smeary screen yet another wipe down
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60
Ten apps multi-tasking without a hiccup
Buzz-o-meter
Tech Specs
- 3G
- Yes
- Battery life
- 10hrs (web or video)
- Bluetooth
- 2.1+EDR
- Camera
- 5MP rear, 2MP front
- Dimensions
- 249x168x13mm
- HDMI
- 1
- Processor
- 1GHz dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2
- Screen resolution
- 1280x800
- Screen size
- 10.1in capacitive touchscreen
- Weight
- 725g
- Wi-Fi
- b/g/n
Comments
khusaini
50 weeks ago
motorola is best i should recommend it to my friend,,motor matic injeksi irit harga murah ,,
r3mylove
1 year ago
it's cool
dankalpian
1 year ago
nice article
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1 year ago
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rosemood
1 year ago
letting you scan emails, flick through a calendar, see who’s Facebooking and browse YouTube at a glance.Commercial LED Light Bulb
Thomas13
1 year ago
Highly recommended device. I wish I could have this one. San Diego painters
John Mathew
1 year ago
Nice device. I would like to use it to know it's accessibility and functions.
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khusaini
1 year ago
so awesome site and of course the information
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l.hauri
1 year ago
I have one and until now it works perfect. I am really impressed! yacht charter Thailand
carlbug
1 year ago
it is a good gadget... I really like it. Seems to be almost perfect. yacht charter Italy
Lintang
1 year ago
Pretty section of content.
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danish124
1 year ago
Nice post.Thank you for taking the time to publish this information very useful!I’m still waiting for some interesting thoughts from your side in your next post thanks.
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jb4522jb
1 year ago
Motorola has done such a great job with it. They have definitely built a great product. You cannot go wrong with this at all. Keep up the good work. short sale hardship letter
danish124
1 year ago
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1 year ago
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petermarco
1 year ago
I like xoom better than ipad. Maybe because i'm used to the function of motorola phones. Makes me better on using this xoom
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kanetaylor
1 year ago
Google may be proud to have a staff like him. He is awesome and briliant. He brings success to google together with other persons. floor tapes
Susancai114
1 year ago
Thanks for sharing the review to Motorola Xoom~ It's good for reading. importing from china
eric stanley
1 year ago
Xoom took far too long to update to 3.1 and there were no apps made specifically for the Xoom. Liked the tab and what its possibilities were. However talk is cheap and Motorola never produced quick enough for me. so maybe somewhere down the line( like 2 years) I will look at the Xoom if it still around. In the mean time Insold up and got myself an iPad 2.
mach3blackbird
2 years ago
I've got one of these and its absolutely fantastic. I think this review was done before any updates. I bought the unit with v3.01 of Honeycomb, and have not had a single crash, and there are already loads of apps that work perfectly. I love that I was able to set it up entirely without a computer. No iTunes needed to get content onto it, and you can drag and drop files onto it if you wish, no matter where you got them from. The homescreens can be customised to have whatever you want on them, and scrolling etc is easily as fluid as ipad 2. Flash works perfectly, and v10.3 is already available for when android 3.1 hits the UK. If you haven't made up your mind, I suggest you go try a xoom for yourself because this review doesn't tell the whole story. Android is developing too fast and these reviews are not updated, so go compare an ipad and xoom and see whats best for you.
simon63
2 years ago
I'll never buy one of these. I made the mistake of getting a Motorola Dext on the promise, by Moto's CEO, it would get updated to 2.0. It's still on 1.5. Moto devices only get proper support in the US. Don't buy one of these unless you have the funds to buy something else in six months when this becomes unsupported.
fleabane
2 years ago
Not much point in having a Ferrari if there's no petrol to put in it; still, in a couple of years time, who knows? maybe the OS will be called ant's nest, and everyone will be waiting for another set of second rate ports.
bobprecious
2 years ago
A wise move.
darenbavister
2 years ago
With the iPad2 going on sale in little under a week and much more of a finished product than the iPad I am still in a tiz...Honeycomb not yet ready, the android app store not comparable to the Apples.....Do I buy the iPad2 or continue to wait....It's too much money to make a mistake being an early adopter in this financial climate...money staying in the bank until at least the end of the summer me thinks