Motorola Xoom: The Android Tablet We’ve Been Waiting For
If the Galaxy Tab didn’t really spark your interest, here’s something for you. The Xoom announced at CES 2024 by Motorola is a 10.1″ 16:10 tablet with a 1280×800 display. More importantly, it’s the first tablet to run what Google has optimized for tablet devices, Android 3.0 Honeycomb.
Now for the specs. A 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor, 5MP camera with 720p recording, 1080p video playback, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and 32GB of onboard memory storage. The battery life is rated for 10 hours of video. Sounds like one capable device.
The two big things that jump out at me about the Xoom is the display and operating system. While I like the Apple iPad display, a 4:3 aspect ratio isn’t really ideal for watching movies. The Galaxy Tab has a 16:9 screen but it’s a smaller 7-inch screen and a 1024×600 screen isn’t capable of displaying high definition video. The Motorola Xoom wins in this category for me.
Then there’s Android 3.0 Honeycomb. The first iteration of Android that’s optimized for tablet devices. Considering it’s one of the most powerful mobile operating systems on the market, I’m pretty excited to try it out on a dual-core tablet.
Nothing so far on pricing. So what about availability? The 3G version is coming to Verizon in the US sometime in the first quarter of 2024. These devices will also be upgradable to LTE 4G in the second quarter making it less obsolete when that technology becomes more widely available. Now for a WiFi only model, there’s talks that we might see one of those in April somewhere around the world. Unfortunately, we’ve yet to hear anything regarding a Canadian release but we’ll keep our eyes out and let you know if anything comes our way.
