Motorola Xoom
You will be aware that 2011 is supposed to be the year that Android tablets hit the big-time. In case you missed it, the explosion of new devices was supposed to happen at Easter. In the event, many launches have since been put back to later in the year, while other products have been launched but are plainly impossible to buy …
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Finally
Finally a decent competitor for the ipad.
They just have to work on the price now, and we're all going to be winners.
Get some facts straight.........
The micro SD card doesn't work because Google haven't enabled it in Honeycombe yet.......
Thats why a software update will fix it.
Secondly 32 gig ipad =£479 and Xoom is £479 its the same price not more or less......
Thirdly Ethernet ????? WTF ???? why the hell do you want ethernet on a tablet ? full usb slot is bad enougth when you concider how thin the tablet is without a bloody great big lump of a port.....Its what wireless and USB are for.
Lastly, I had an ipad for the best part of a year and now have had the Xoom for 3 weeks and can say that iOS is for non techies and Android is for the rest of us who like to set up feel of screen etc to look like we want.
I love Android 3 and look forward to more aps etc getting better as they are adapted for the tablet. Don't miss th ipad now I am Xooming ahead.
Oh and as for the Asus transformer, Laskys getting a delivery with the dock tomorrow if you are desperate for one
This thing was dead on arrival.
I'm sorry, but the Asus Transformer murders it. In the face. With an asteroid.
LOLs
Ridiculous post as it's not widely out yet, but very funny.
sheesh
If I'd've wanted a top heavy laptop, I'd've bought a top heavy laptop.
Jack of all, master of none
(I'm guessing you've played with neither the Xoom or the Asus)
Played with both.
I also own a Galaxy Tab, an HTC Desire, and have had the chance to play with many other tablets, besides.
Let me lay some truth on you here:
The Asus Transformer works as "just a tablet" when desired. IN this mode it delivers phenomenal battery life that meets or exceeds every single one of it's competitors. Then, you can attach it to the keyboard dock, extending the battery life from 9 hours to 16 (!), gain a keyboard and two USB ports in host mode. Now this is critical; it allows you to attach a real mouse and use external storage such as thumb drives.
What was just an Android tablet - good for /personal/ use such as being a personal media player - becomes a perfectly functional thin client for RDP work. Excepting it is light, hella portable and has SIXTEEN ****ING HOURS OF BATTERY LIFE.
Tablets like the Xoom, the Galaxy Tab or yes, even the iPad are nothing more than “an Archos that doesn’t suck.” The Asus Transformer bridges the gap between “personal media player with a browser and some bells on” and “a real, functional laptop.”
Sure, it doesn’t have Windows…but you don’t NEED windows. You just need a good RDP client. (Wyse PocketCloud works like a hot damn.) And it’s got SIXTEEN HOURS OF BATTERY LIFE. I can’t stress that enough.
It might not matter to you – but I spend my entire day away from a wall socket. I like to sit by the lake and write. I like to sit in the park and manage my servers. I like to go to the pub and do my research. I like to be on the go, moving from place to place and experiencing life as something other than three interesting stains on the ass end of a fabric coloured box.
The Asus transformer is the *first* device that I have ever encountered that truly and honestly gives me a shot at getting the amount of /work/ done in a day that I have to, whilst allowing me the freedom to enjoy the life that work is paying for.
So yes, the Transformer ruins the Xoom. It took the Galaxy tab out back and shot it. With a flare gun. It took one look at the iPad, laughed, and punted it’s ass into a low orbit just so that it could have the pleasure of watching the brief fireball it made on reentry.
It is not perfect. Not by a long shot. Nor is Asus – I have more than a few bones to pick with those bastards – but it is still the single most innovative, impressive and honest-to-god useful piece of consumer-level technology that I have personally had the pleasure to use in over twenty years.
I got to borrow one for a week. I am HOOKED. I can’t get my grubby little paws on a personal “mine, my precious” model quickly enough.
If you think I am an Asus shill or other such nonsense, then I tell you to go back and read my previous comments on this site. I’m not a shill for anyone. I’m a grumpy old curmudgeon who rarely has a nice word about anything or anyone to say. I bitch, moan, whine and complain about things all the time – and I could sit here all day long listing faults of even my precious Transformer.
That doesn’t change the fact that – in my personal opinion – this is the best bit of consumer gear to have come out in twenty years. For all of it’s flaws, all of it’s issues, the buggy OS, the shitty Asus support – and abominable website…it’s still better than anything the competition have to offer.
And damn it…I’ve wanted something like this since I was six years old.
So when I say something nice about a product; that's rare. When I /rave/ about a product, that's the time to sit up and take notice. If you haven't used a Transformer, then please...find someone who has one, and borrow it for a day or two.
If you can pry it out of the owner's hands.
Date very quickly
Having bought a 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab I have to conclude based on that example, they date terribly - my Tab looks and feels like an antique compared to this and I've only had it about 3 months. This market will eat itself at this rate, no one is going to pony up nearly 500 quid on an item that feels ancient within 6 months. I'll be very reluctant to buy another one, no one can afford a refresh rate this quick.
Skype?
"Front and rear cameras make the tablet a usable video chatter with GoogleTalk or Skype, "
Well, it would if the Android Skype app supported video calling! Perhaps a little more familiarity with the subject matter is in order?
Wannabe
Oooh, all these iPad 2 wannabes. Its such a shame that they cannot even fathom the concept of the iPad, what it is, what it is meant to do or why it even exists. All these copy cats are just a shot by the manufacuturers at stabbing in the dark and hoping to get lucky. Nice try moto but try again.
And the rest of you people should stick to your netbooks.
Sent from my iPad 2
iPad is £329
Right now, you can either buy an iPad or an iMatator. Its a well known fact that Android is 2yrs behind iOS. Here's my personal buying guide.
1. If you're on a micro budget, keept your Windows XP PC/lappy. Do NOT buy a tablet.
2. If you have a few bob to spare for for some fun, head down to maplins and buy a £79 Android 1.6 tablet.
3. If you've saved some beer money, for under £200, go crazy over an Android 2.0/2.1 tablet.
4. If you hate Apple and love WinTel Flash, but a netbook. I hear these things go for sub-£200.
5. If you hate Apple and wanna put your money where your mouth is, buy a tab or Xoom. Flash 10.2 is teh awesome! All the other sh1t you wont notice and will happily tollerate. BBC iPlayer in WebOS FTW!!!
6. If you wave the cash to flash and want it just to work, buy an iPAd 1. Its £329 and will give you 10hrs of continuous use. No it doesnt support flash, but it has apps for all the relevent uses, BBC news, iPlayer, 4OD, Sky player and the adult sites. Right now its iPad or bust, apps galore, very many big media players have apps for most functions, all built from the ground up for YOUR device. For me this is the most popular choice. Either spend £29 on an iPad or carry on saving your pennies, Its either and iPad or its not.
7. For anyone wanting to push the boat out, buy an iPad 2 for £60 more. Double the CPU, double the ram, 9x the graphics.
iPads have a great resale value. You could easiily buy it now, have a good time and selll it in time for iPad 3 for little loss.
A “Hardware” Review that focuses selectively on software
Of course it's senseless to talk about hardware without discussing the software, which is why it is odd to review this without even touching on...
Movies. It's great for plugging into your TV, cables dangling. But where would one get the HD video that is so great about the tablet? And if one is flying, say on a four-hour flight, how would one (legally, reliably) download a video onto it for watching while not streaming from the web?
Video editing: you mentioned capturing video and then streaming it to the TV after edits. How good is that editing? Would you actually attempt more than simple clips with it? The YouTube vid I watched of using that editor made it look like the buggiest POS imaginable.
Browsing. A huge selling point for the Xoom was Flash. And yet, if I understand correctly, there is today, months after the feature was announced, only a beta version of Flash on it, playing many videos badly or not at all. WTF? Why buy a tablet to run Flash that won't run Flash? Maybe in a few weeks Adobe will figure out the powerful Tegra2 chip inside, but as of today, there is an advertised feature that does not work, dependent on a third party that owes you nothing if it fails to get it right by two years from now.
Other apps. Most people are NOT buying tablets just to have a skinnier netbook; they want device-attuned apps for dictionaries, book-reading, photo editing, etc., etc. What's the line-up of these? How have developers responded when Jobs said he was being charitable in counting 100 apps suitable for an Android tablet?
"Inquiring Minds Want to Know!"
Another "Ipad Killer"
That isn't. Of course. That is why you can get one at Staples here in the US on the shelves now.. just sitting there. I am waiting for the Droidbots to thumb me down now.
Couple of corrections
1. As pointed out by AC at 12:27, it will run 720p at full resolution - the controls are at the bottom only so not sure why you decided to perform dubious maths on the width
2. The controls always taking screen space at bottom would be a Google Android 3.0 thing not Motorola specific since it seems to be on all Honeycomb tablets, albeit some like the Asus Eee pad have had the buttons changed to nicer looking ones.
3. The Asus Eee pad was difficult to buy but as I've had my fingers on mine since Tuesday, it clearly isn't impossible (it's £100-119 cheaper but 16GB instead of 32GB storage - but then it does have a working micro SD slot)
Controls -always- visible?
Doesn't the control strip for the video fade away after a few seconds, and appear again on a tap or shake or whatever? I cannot seriously believe they'd have failed so badly as to make full-screen corner-to-corner movie playing impossible.
All down to individual choice
For me, I'd never by an iPad because there is no Flash support, no HDMI socket, no MKV video support and you are shackled to iTunes for updates etc. That's not to say the iPad doesn't have strengths, of course it does, it just doesn't do what I personally want from a tablet.
In all matters diversity is a good thing.
Sorry, but this is not a great review
How well does flash work in the browser? What's the app availability like? How many of the apps associated with your Android phone account appeared in the Market download option for the Xoom? How do those apps that do appear scale up to this resolution? What's does the UI look like? How about some screen grabs? How about some benchmark figures? How well to HD "Tegra" games run? How about some empirical battery tests like looping a video until the device dies - that's what Reg does with netbooks and laptops.
This reads more like a quick hands-on by an iPhone/iPad user than a detailed technical review by a long term Android device user who can make the necessary comparisons between 2.2 as a phone OS and 3.0 as a tablet OS.
After reading this I'm really none the wiser about the Xoom.
Hope the Reg's reviews of new Acer and Asus Android pads etc are more thorough and up to its usually high standard.
Brand Name
One of the big issues here is brand name, and since the iPad is now the recognised leader in tablets, along with its brand name "APPLE", you are more than just buying a tablet but your buying the name that goes with it.
Now all these other devices may be better or worse than the iPad, that is not the problem, the main problem is the price. Apple has set the benchmark for the tablet, like it or hate it, Apple is the recognised Premium name for a tablet, and you are paying for it.
Now come the tablets that want to compete, they dont have the premium name, and no matter what hardware they throw at it they will fall short of the recognised premium name for tablets.
Would you pay more for a copy of a Jaguar car than an original Jaguar, no matter how many bells and whistles it had, considering its made by Ford. I know not a perfect analogy but you get the point.
Asus Transformer with keyboard now at Comet
Forget the Xoom. The Asus Transformer with keyboard Is now available at Comet stores for £429. Gawd knows how Comet (not known as a cutting edge go get 'em type company) has managed to be the only UK outlet to secure these things.
Amazon is still saying the 1st of June. Seriously embarrassing for them to be pipped to the post by Comet...
That Apple car analogy, corrected
The Ipad is like a Jaguar that can only be filled up by driving it into a Jaguar owned petrol station.
Well.......
I have just replaced my iPad with a Xoom and I am very happy. I am a bit of a geek though and have been developing with Android since 1.5. The Xoom does everything I used my iPad for and for me, personally, I prefer the Android interface and approach, primarily the easy use of widgets and the multiple appstores approach.
I think the important thing is to find a device that works for you. The Xoom does for me, but hey if an iPad works better for you 'go for it'
Tried Honeycomb.
Thought "WTF?"
Went back to stroking my Froyo. Seriously Google, have you been taking lessons from the Microsoft school of user interface design? "Mindless change as often as possible to confuse the shit out of everyone"?
What exactly makes this interface better for tablets? I seriously cannot see any advantages and a permanent non-removable navbar taking up screen real-estate is a very big disadvantage. Really, I could cope with Microsoft's Ribbon better than Honeycomb, and that's saying something.
Look, Numbwits at Moto
it's a netbook without an intel CPU, no windows tax, and the keyboard is missing.
So how come it isn't $199?
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