Motorola Xoom: First Impressions

An initial BestBuy SKU listing for the Motorola Xoom shocked me because the new tablet was reportedly going to sell for $1099. Then there were reports suggesting that wasn't going to be the final price of the item and Motorola themselves came out and announced that the 3G version (upgradeable to 4G/LTE) of the tablet would be priced at $799. Now that price looks a lot better compared to four digits but is still a little steep. Especially with a whole bunch of other competing tablets on the way. 

Motorola Xoom

Thursday, 02/24/11 was set as the launch date and that's today. I was curious to see why the Xoom got good reviews at CES 2011. Is this really an iPad, or possibly an iPad 2, competitor? So I decided to go to my local BestBuy store to check it out. I must say, there were no ads, signs or flyers I could see at the store.  In fact, I went to the Cell Phone section where all other tablets are displayed (Dell Streak, Galaxy Tab, Archos etc.) to try and find the Xoom. It wasn't there. So I asked a sales rep and she directed me to the Computer section where the Xoom was displayed at one end of the table right next to the netbooks. There were no people surrounding it, no interest from anyone. I'm guessing no one camped out the previous night in anticipation of the Xoom. It just lay there in the corner by itself which gave me a chance to play around with it a little.

At first glance it looked bigger than the iPad. I can't comment on the weight because devices in the store have those bulky security do-thats attached to them. The Xoom did feel good in my hands though. It has a nice finish. The screen is crisp and clear; resolution looks tight. This thing runs Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) which is supposed to be designed especially for tablet devices. I must say it definitely runs better than previous Android versions (like the one on the Galaxy Tab). And, the Xoom is quite fast. Scrolling through the menus is smooth and webpages heavy on graphics open without any hiccups. I tried scrolling up and down NFL.com and unlike the Galaxy Tab it went really smooth. No lag or jerky transitions at all. Webpages look great in portrait view too. Impressive!

Browser in landscape view

The YouTube app has a nice layout and browsing through video search results really showcased the speed of this tablet. The device never hung up on me. Zooming in and out of pictures or webpages was flawless. Another good thing is that there are no physical buttons (home, back etc. like other Android devices), they have been clustered and located at the bottom left corner on the screen itself as backlit icons. I also liked the layout of the home screen.

Browser in portrait view

Ok, now the bad parts. For some reason I couldn't get the volume buttons to control the volume. All I could do is mute the speakers by running the volume all the way down and turn it up to a single level. As the volume bar moved there was no transition in the sound level. Maybe there is a setting that needs to be changed or a defect in the demo piece. Also, the speakers are located at the back of the device which I thought would be interesting to see how they sound and I must say, no good! I didn't like them. I could barely hear some YouTube videos (may have been because of the volume issues) and playing music from the Music app made the sound feel like it was going away from me. Like I was standing behind a wall, trying to listen to what's playing on the other side. Maybe those speakers will take getting used to. The BestBuy description says there is an SD card slot but I couldn't find it. Maybe it was hidden by the security attachment or there isn't one at all. All it has is 32GB internal memory (non-upgradeable contrary to the BestBuy description). I did find the SIM card slot though. The screen is a fingerprint magnet, which I had to wipe off with a piece of tissue to really appreciate. The 5.0 megapixel back camera wasn't that impressive and besides it feels weird not to have touch-to-focus and to hold a 10-inch device up to click a picture. Certain sites opened in the mobile version which was annoying (NFL.com and CNN). I don't remember that happening on my iPad. Lastly the price was still too high (did I mention that before?).

BestBuy's description (click image for larger view)

I did, however, find out that Verizon no longer imposed the '1 month activation required' stipulation. So all you pay is $799 plus tax, no strings attached. You can get a month-to-month plan if you desire, there are no contracts (according to the sales rep but I know Verizon offers the Xoom for $599 with a 2-year tie-down). I wouldn't get a tablet with a 2-year contract anyways because I have a Virgin Mobile Mi-Fi. Hence, all I need is a wi-fi only device that runs a non-iOS operating system. I know Motorola will put out a wi-fi only version of the Xoom sometime soon so I'll wait for that.

If I had to rate the Xoom on a scale of 10, I would give it an 8 (speakers in a better place please!). The iPad, for me, would be a 9 (missing a front facing camera, I don't care about flash). Besides, there is that reliability factor about iOS that makes rating it high easy. The hardware features of the Xoom are obviously better than the iPad. Honeycomb needs a more in-depth review. I'm sure it's way better than previous versions of the operating system and better suited for tablets but then again I wasn't thrilled about having certain sites open in then mobile version. We will have to wait and see what other reviewers have to say.

If anyone wanted to buy a Xoom from my local BestBuy store they would have to get on a order list. So I asked the sales rep how long the list was hoping to hear, for Motorola's sake, a number in the hundreds. But the girl told me I would be 10th in line to get one if I wanted to. Well that's certainly not a hundred but hey, at least 9 people thought the Xoom was worth their 800 odd dollars.

I hope the wi-fi only version of the Xoom is priced somewhere close to $500 so I can consider getting one. I'm not willing to pay more than $600 bucks for it. I'll just wait for other tablets to come out and then decide. So for now, I am not going to have a non-iOS tablet anytime soon. Here are some more pictures though (click images for larger view).

Notice the flash ad hasn't loaded

YouTube app on the Xoom

Buttons on the bottom left corner