Motorola's Xoom is the Android tablet to beat (video)

January 10, 2011 8:28 PM
Devindra Hardawar

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

There were plenty of tablets at the Consumer Electronics Show last week, but few were as compelling as Motorola’s upcoming flagship Android tablet, the Xoom.

It was clearly the strongest Android tablet at the show (among a sea of many), and the one I bet will give the iPad a run for its money this year — especially since it’s also the first tablet to run on Verizon’s LTE 4G network. It comes as no surprise to hear that Motorola may be aiming to ship 1 million Xooms in the first quarter of 2011.

As you’ll see in the video demonstration below, the combination of Google’s tablet-friendly Android 3.0 OS and the Xoom’s gorgeous 10.1-inch screen makes for a tasty treat. While the demonstration wasn’t live, the Motorola representative said it was a recording of the Xoom being used in real-time.

The demo cycles through much of what Android 3.0 will bring to all Android tablets this year — a revamped user interface, better Gmail support, improved Google Maps, Google Talk video chat and more. It’s also connected to a large computer display, showing off the Xoom’s HDMI video output.

Additionally, the Motorola representative said that the company would find some way to feature tablet-optimized apps in the Android Market. I’m not sure if this implies a tablet-specific section in the Market, or a separate app market just for the Xoom. I suspect that with the proliferation of more Android tablets, Google will find some way to find apps that will run better on their larger screens — a problem that owners of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab are currently facing.

The Xoom’s release date and price still haven’t been announced. We expect it to land within the next few months and for it to be competitive with the pricing of the iPad and other Android tablets.

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http://twitter.com/mfg68 Matt Galo

That rep was very knowledgeable! If only they were all like him. I the Xoom comes out in February. That would be the sweeeetest Valentines Day!
stevenN

Too bad it crashed frequently when not running the video of Honeycomb. When I was there, it crashed every 5 to 10 minutes or so and the reps started sticking only to running the video of what Honeycomb is, even then, it crashed once on completion of the video. Over all, while the UI looked really good, it felt like a product 4-6 months from release.The Playbook, on the other hand, was simply amazing in its performance wiping the floor with both Android and the iPad as the wanna-be. Running Quake while decoding a 1080p video with both running in a window at the same time with out a glitch. The QnX OS was smooth and fluid. When it reach memory resource limits, however, it was not always graceful and dumping apps requiring a full restart. Overall, however, it looked much much closer to shipping than the Xoom.
http://twitter.com/thedrcoma James Patterson

Does anyone think he could be Rodney Dangerfield's half brother?
jackieboi

Another Sci/Tech Google News update from Devindra, keep up the good work man, its payin' off.
http://www.devindra.org Devindra Hardawar

I believe the guy actually worked on developing the Playbook, so he was very excited about showing it off–
http://www.devindra.org Devindra Hardawar

That Quake demo on the Playbook was just a video, or so I was told by the RIM rep. I agree QNX looks great though–
stevenN

Not the one I was seeing. They were actually controlling it. Or the Rep was just darn good at faking it (could be. Having seen the demo a few hundred times.).Overall, I really like the look of the PlayBook except it was a bit small. I hope QnX gives the new life RIM is looking for. It is a top notch OS.