It’s ridiculous that the Xoom’s microSD card slot doesn’t work out of the box. I don’t understand it at all. No matter, the good ol’ XDA boys figured took it upon themselves to unlock the port. It requires a custom kernel, which in of itself requires the Xoom to be jailbroken, but the whole process is like jailbreaking any other Android device. (read: just follow the instructions) Hopefully an… → Read More
The Motorola Xoom is currently only available on the Big Red V, but that might be changing soon. A Xoom protective case was found in Sprint’s retail system and apparently stores are receiving boxes of accessories either today or tomorrow. The only thing missing is, well, the Xooms. → Read More
Someone got a nice little deal. One of the gold Xooms given out as Oscar swag ended up on Ebay last week and sold for just $1,525. That’s actually not a bad price when you add it up: $800 for 32GB/3G Xoom, $50 for the standard dock, and lets say $150 for the limited edition Lodis Leather custom folio. (which I want) All that adds up to just $1000 meaning someone paid just a $500 premium for… → Read More
With the rise of devices like the A500 and similar Honecomb-powered tablets, the Xoom has a very short window of opportunity to cash in on any potential sales. To remedy that, it seems that Verizon will be pushing out an LTE 4G 16GB Xoom tablet for what we can only assume will be considerably less than the $600 the 32GB Xoom costs currently. → Read More
The comments on yesterday’s post concerning the Xoom’s bungled launch stated loud and clear that people want inexpensive Android tablets — or at least that the high MSRP was the Xoom’s undoing. The thought is that if you’re going to spend over $500 on a tablet, the iPad is the only choice, which therefore makes the $800 Xoom a no-sale. I sort of agree with that even… → Read More
Few folks seem to remember that it was a just a few years ago that a consortium of handset manufacturers got together to form the Open Handset Alliance, an effort to create an open, free platform. This effort would eventually become Android and, back in 2007 when the OHA began, the platform’s success was far from secure.
Between 2001 and 2007, phone manufacturers had a problem. They had very few… → Read More
Here’s a fun tidbit for you: I really like the Motorola Xoom. The web browsing is fantastic, email is great, the notification bar is tops and, well, Verizon’s service rocks. It’s tad pricey but in my mind it’s still a great tablet. Is it better than an iPad? Well, not really, but it scores major bonus points for advancing the user experience of a tablet thanks to Google’s Honeycomb.
However, it… → Read More
According to Pacific Crest analyst James Faucette, quoted in Forbes, sales of the Motorola Atrix and Xoom devices, darlings of the CES rodeo, have been “disappointing.” Ironically, the very devices designed to bring Motorola out of its 2010 slump have added to its doldrums and Faucette believes that the company must “quickly adjust and refresh its product portfolio” in order to remain… → Read More
Now, this isn’t exactly groundbreaking stuff, but it does really demonstrate the fact that all tablets (especially the more recent and hackable ones) are just small computers. Anything’s possible — convenient, perhaps not, but if you’re looking to take full advantage of the hardware you’ve just bought, there are definitely ways to go about doing that. → Read More
Yesterday, Motorola announced the WiFi-only Xoom would be hitting stores March 27th; but they never mentioned anything about pre-orders. Well a few retailers have answered the question of many and put up pre-orders..right now. Head to Amazon, Costco or Staples to jump on the pre-order, no need to hurry though, they won’t be running out any time soon. → Read More
The wait is nearly over, Android fans. The WiFi-only flavor of the Xoom is set to hit a bunch of retailers in just over two weeks on March 27th. Amazon, Best Buy, Costco, RadioShack, Staples, Walmart, and select Sam’s Club locations should all offer the tablet both in stores and through their respective online services. The WiFi-only flavor packs everything found in the 3G counterpart… → Read More
Video conferencing technology company Vidyo is enhancing its platform with support for Apple’s just released iPad 2, Motorola’s XOOM tablet and Atrix smartphone. The platform utilizes the company’s VidyoTechnology SDK, which is available to third parties, and enables 720p HD multipoint video conferencing that works on a range of mobile devices.
With Vidyo’s platform, customers can join… → Read More
We have to level with you. The iPad 2 has some flaws. One would only expect that the iPad 2, a device many many months ahead of the iPhone 4, would have an equal or better quality camera. Sadly, it doesn’t. So to see just where the iPad 2 camera ranks with the rest of the meaningful tablets, Macworld thoroughly tests them. → Read More
Anandtech has run a few synthetic benchmarks on the iPad 2, comparing it with the original iPad and the Motorola Xoom. I’m actually pretty shocked by how far ahead it is. I considered Apple’s “9x faster” boasts to be more or less exaggerations of still-significant gains, but this thing is taking the Tegra 2 to school. Remember, though: the Tegra 2 is pushing ~25% more… → Read More
Remember the Xoom? We really liked it. Anyway, Jefferies analyst Peter Misek says that the Xoom is going to be knee-capped by the iPad 2 this week and probably for the rest of its natural life, a situation that does not bode well for the Honeycomb tablet. → Read More
Xoom owners? Verizon is pushing a update to your darling tablet sometime today, which will then allow you to download Flash 10.2 next week. 10.2 brings a host of new features: hardware accelerated H.264 playback, faster webpage rendering, and a new ActionScript API for better soft keyboard support. All this fun comes next week on the 18th. [Verizon & Abobe] → Read More
The immense popularity of the iPad, and now the iPad 2, has Apple’s competitors, in the words of Steve Jobs, flummoxed. What to do? According to a J.P. Morgan Research analyst, it may well be that all of these competitor tablets will be sitting on the store shelves as folks decide en masse that the iPad is the way to go. In other words, competitors try to convince people that their tablet is… → Read More
In January 2010, shortly after its unveiling, I first got my hands on an iPad. My initial reaction? “The iPad is like holding the future.” And that’s funny because here we are, just a little over a year into that future, and something new has come along that makes holding the iPad 1 feel like holding the past: the iPad 2.
A week ago, after its unveiling, I got some hands on time with the new… → Read More
The tablet wars are coming to Staples in April. According to a leaked internal memo, employees will be trained on the Xoom and PlayBook at the end of this month with both tablets then launching the following month. That timetable is inline with the PlayBook’s rumored launch, but RIM has not officially announced its launch details including release date or price. This move does somewhat hint about… → Read More
It’s war!
This week, I went to the unveiling of the iPad 2 and got some hands-on time with the device afterwards. Meanwhile, Jason bought a Xoom and has been extensively testing it out. The consensus? iPad 2: Good. Xoom: Bad. At least for now. I haven’t extensively played with iPad 2 yet, and Google is undoubtedly going to patch the Xoom. But still, first impressions are key.
Jason and I discuss… → Read More
An inside man or woman at Sam’s Club has sent Droid-Life a few pictures of the Motorola Xoom end cap display there, and the price is refreshingly low, considering the total cost of ownership for a subsidized 3G one. $539 is still a chunk of change, but it might give the iPad shopper pause. Bear in mind these prices are unconfirmed, and considering the other errors on the placard… → Read More
“These are post-PC devices, that need to be even easier to use than a PC.”
That was Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ closing remark as he left the stage having just announced the iPad 2 at an event today in San Francisco. And that comment really summed up the vibe of the entire event. When Jobs was on stage, he made it very clear over and over again that the iPad competition out there just doesn’t seem… → Read More
Motorola’s Xoom, the first Android 3.0 tablet to get into consumer hands (if you don’t count hacked Nook Colors), has a total cost of about $278, according to UBM TechInsights and iSuppli. That’s $33 more than the iPad’s cost-to-build estimate. On the consumer pricing front, an iPad with 3G and 32GB of storage costs $729, while the Xoom is $799. Motorola is, of course, going to have to defend the… → Read More
The Galaxy Tab originally launched with a $600 price tag after 2-year contract. Now, the Galtab is priced to sell: $299 after 2-year contract at Verizon. The price drop comes just after the Motorola Xoom released. → Read More
That didn’t take long. Yesterday, we reported that hacker @koush had successfully made the Xoom moddable by installing his ClockworkMod Recovery ROM manager. At that point root access was not achieved, but, no less than a day later he made it happen. → Read More
The Motorola Xoom, like the iPad, is mostly dead air and a battery. iFixIt did their best to tear out all the important bits, finding a large screen, a handsome circuit board, and what appears to be a dead PCI board dedicated to future upgrades. → Read More
It was only just released, but the Motorola Xoom has already been made moddable by Seattle hacker @koush, who installed his ClockworkMod Recovery ROM manager on the device with no problems. Kind of a 180 after all that hullaballoo about the Droid series having highly protected bootloaders. → Read More
I have the Motorola Xoom here in my hot little hands and I put it through its paces over the past few days and I’d love to demonstrate and explore the device with your questions in mind. What I’m planning is a 12pm Eastern/9am Pacific LIVE STREAM for one hour TOMORROW Friday, February 25, answering the questions you have about the device and going through some of the screens. → Read More
Short Version Few tablets have met with such widespread anticipation as the recently-announced Xoom. It is the closest anyone has come to an iPad equivalent for the Android set. I was impressed with the speed, design, and quality of the device, and although there are a few caveats, I came away optimistic for the new crop of Honeycomb devices that will follow this one. → Read More
If the Xoom’s $800 price was a little daunting, VZW’s $600 on-contract price might sound a little easier on the wallet. That price gets you the full 3G (upgradeable to 4G) Xoom as long as you don’t mind spending $20 a month for 1GB of data. This works out to an end cost $1,080 for the device and 24GB of wireless data. The silver lining is that Verizon also announced that the Xoom’s LTE upgrade… → Read More
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