Motorola Xoom

Motorola Xoom

We got our hands on a demo unit of the Motorola Xoom courtesy of one of our friends from Tribal DDB (you rock Chewy). In terms of hardware the Motorola Xoom is powered by a 1 Ghz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor and 1GB DDR2 RAM. To those who don’t do tech speak let’s just say that the Xoom is one of the most packed tablets in the market. This machine has a robust and strong engine to power the applications and stuff that you want to do on it. It has front (5MP with dual flash) and back facing cameras that’s usable for still photos but definitely not enough to replace a good digital camera. It also records 720p video. One distinct feature though about the Xoom is that it’s already compatible with 4G networks, something that the iPad 2 and the BlackBerry PlayBook are incapable of. If Smart is able to roll-out their LTE quickly then the Xoom is probably the only decent tablet that will be able to fully maximize the high speed mobile broadband.


Motorola Xoom in the flesh! Or… er… in the steel! ><

By the way the Xoom isn’t the same size as the iPad 2. It’s 9.8 inches wide by 6.6 tall making it look like a bit longer than the iPad 2. It has a great screen as well with 1280 x 800 capacitive display.

Operating System
The Motorola Xoom is powered by Android 3.0 Honeycomb. I’ve used a Samsung Galaxy Tablet before and you can definitely feel the difference. The UI is cleaner, sleeker, and more responsive. It’s not as easy to use yet as Apple’s iOS but it’s definitely an improvement compared to was available with the Galaxy Tab. The initial look though definitely feels futuristic. Engadget described it as almost like Tron and we completely agree with their observation. I don’t know if this is the right direction though if you want to hit the mainstream market.

With the Xoom you have 5 customizable home screens where you can fill up with your app shortcuts and live widgets (not offered by iOS). The notification system is also much better than other tablets. You get messages at the lower right corner for your messages, downloads, and updates. There’s also the universal search feature and multi-tasking. The multi-tasking isn’t as good as the PlayBook but it’s definitely still okay.

Unfortunately the Xoom doesn’t have Flash out of the box so we’ll have to wait for a software update for that.

So… should you get one?
Well, the Motorola Xoom delivers all the fundamental features of a good tablet computing machine. It allows you to surf the web, check and send messages, consume media, and play different games from the Android Market. It has a lot of potential especially with 4G in the horizon as well as the Flash software update. At the end of the day it really boils down to your personal preference. Some people are just more comfortable and happy with the Apple brand while some just despise it. The nice thing is that we’re getting more options these days and we’ll definitely get more in the coming months ahead.

This is actually available already in the Philippines. There are online sellers that let it go for P30,000. You can also check the various PC stores in Gilmore.

Here’s the official promotional video for the Xoom:

There’s no official announcement yet on when the Xoom will be officially available in the Philippines.

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