Motorola launched the gadget in the form of a tablet pc called Motorola Xoom
Motorola Xoom specifications:
Android Honeycomb (3.0)
10.1-inch diagonal capacitive touchscreen (1280 x 800, 16:10)
NVIDIA T20, dual core
1GB DDR2 LP
32GB of internal memory, MicroSD expandable
Front-facing 2.0 megapixel webcam, behind the 5.0 megapixel camera with flash
Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR + HID
9.80 x 6.61 x 0.51 inches
£ 1.61
Price at Launch: contract $ 799.99 / wo, $ 599.99 with a two-year agreement
Building & Design
Motorola do their best to survive, with a little tweak the design that works well for and against it.
The Xoom is the all-black tablet with rounded edges and a little texture and a split rear rubber about a quarter of the way down from the top. The top of a little more subtle and more "rubber" than the bottom. We found Xoom back over to the back of all-plastic model of the Galaxy base Samsung Tab (not Tab Verizon, a small rubber bullets) and Apple iPad. Compared with the competition are available, Xoom just easier to hold, and again shrugging off fingerprints well.
As with other tablets, all ports are found on the edge. Mini-USB and mini-HDMI port on the bottom of the input docking and charger port, and 3.5 mm headphone jack on the top for a notch hide MicroSD slot and SIM card slot.
There are two volume buttons on the left side, while the right side has nothing.i
power / lock button is on the back of the device, sitting on the right of the two speakers on-board. Camera lens and rear camera flash sat between them.
Unlike many Android handsets, there are no buttons on the front of Xoom. There is only 10.1-inch screen and front-facing camera. I hope this becomes a problem, but I quickly adjust, and the lack of buttons gives Xoom who feels much more modern than competing tablets.
Because of its size, Xoom shall use the tablet in both hands. It's too big and heavy to use with one hand extended, unlike the Galaxy 7-inch Tab. But it also feels more sturdy than tablets Android Samsung, and even the first generation iPad.
If there is a defective design, the placement of the camera lens in the back, and unfortunately that is not common with tablets. The lens is only slightly hidden from the body, so vulnerable to fingerprints and scratches. Users who value on-board camera will want to invest in a folio or be very careful when putting the tablet on the top surface
Screen and Speakers
The four-button setup Android familiar has been replaced by an icon screen tucked in the lower left corner of the screen, which includes recent-app/multi-tasking, home, and back orders. A panel featuring a battery gauge notification, data connections, clock, and access to the fast setting sitting at a right angle.
An application shortcut, customizing the home screen shortcut sitting at the top right corner of the screen, and two search icon sitting in the left corner atas.Satu for search text and the other for voice commands.
The screen is very shiny and reflective, and stunning picture quality and very detailed. Viewing angles are only limited by the gloss, but more than acceptable as Xoom to maintain color and detail even at sharp angles. Looking at the head, the color looks great and HD video are some of the best we've seen on a portable device. Even better than the standard video and Galaxy output iPad Tab.
Touch input is smooth, precise and responsive. In our time with Xoom, tablet admitted referred to the tap almost all the time and suppress stubborn at a minimum. The Xoom standard feature film-to-scroll and pinch-to-zoom control, so they are familiar with touch screens will have no trouble navigating.
Stereo speakers are impressive for a portable device in both fidelity and volume, but its placement on the back of Xoom is a double-edged sword. Ideally, the speakers will face the front so that users can experience stereo sound in all its glory, but it will endanger Xoom and basic tablet design. Conversely, the speaker faces away from the device and is expected to produce sound slightly muffled. Maybe not on purpose anyway, this really works well with game two hands, as a speaker situated so that the vibration speaker adding haptic element to the overall gaming experience.
Performance
The Xoom Tegra sports dual-core 2 processor, and it seems Honeycomb competition will soon have one as well when the tablet finally ships. That's probably a good thing because the active widget is central to the experience Honeycomb, and a small ARM processor may be difficult to keep things fluid.
In fact, we loaded up Xoom with various widgets for multiple email accounts, Twitter feeds, weather, news, and up, and it is glorious. However, the performance took a little hit, but still visible in the form of lag at times when we have some overlap with downloading widgets and applications. Heavy processing also produces small amounts of heat.
Web browsing is also fast and efficiently via the Wi-Fi and 3G, but we can not really encourage Xoom at the front of this, considering it does not currently support Flash (10.2 Flash player is coming "soon" according to Motorola).
Video chat via Wi-Fi is also treated. Google Talk application works great and easy to operate. This is a big step up from video chat because Galaxy Tab Tab does not ship with the standard chat applications, and fragmentation is a problem. For instance, Qik video chat work on Tab Sprint, but Verizon does not support tab it for our review.
Video chat over 3G, while possible, is buggy and choppy. Both audio and video cut out and it's almost impossible to carry a conversation.
The Xoom takes about 40 seconds to start up, both loaded with applications and widgets, and fresh out of the box following a basic set up. Verizon claims to Xoom will last for 10 hours of streaming video. In fair condition, we can see Xoom hit the mark. We squeezed more than seven hours of constant video streaming via YouTube, but it is with Wi-Fi on and the max screen brightness, not to mention a few widgets and running processes.
Finally, a camera onboard both decent, but not exceptional. They are equivalent to most smartphones, and the steps below pocket HD camcorder and digital camera point-and-shoot. But Xoom beyond the low-end devices in terms of control and image effects.
Honeycomb
It seems that the hype surrounding Honeycomb has rivaled every major Windows release to date. And for the credit, the new version of Android is the operating system of the tablet is very useful - far more than previous versions of Android. In fact, arguably offers the customization and offer a better experience overall than IOS, but still not without problems.
Functionally speaking, Honeycomb is not much different from Froyo (Android 2.2). Fifth-homescreens standards still exist, and press the prolonged display a new page to define the various widgets, application shortcuts, and wallpaper for. Unlike Android mobile, Honeycomb allows users to place shortcuts on one of the five homescreens, not only the homescreen where users are called from the menu.
As mentioned earlier in the review, there are ubiquitous shortcut / soft keys in the lower left corner to return, calling on the homescreen center, and view a list of five recent or run applications, which can double as an application menu settings. 3D honeycomb also offers a very interesting and scaling effects when navigating through homescreens or open and close the program.
If there is a problem with Honeycomb, is that there is no simple way to manage widgets and applications. Users must navigate to the settings menu to close the application and disable widgets. While Android is always able to effectively manage the available memory by nixing the low priority when resources become scarce, we want to see a little more control in the hands of the user.
We are also not very happy with the keyboard Honeycomb. Nothing wrong with that in terms of utility, but very plain, and has no haptic feedback. Samsung has a good vibration Galaxy Tab key and Swype (swipe to the text), and we'd love to see them at Xoom. As it stands, users have to peck away at the virtual keyboard to enter text.
Keyboard plain likely causality of Xoom become the Google of pure, which fortunately means that tablets are free of custom leather or bloatware, from both Motorola and Verizon. Given a choice, however, we received a few V Cast keyboard shortcuts if they mean Swype.
Apps
At launch, there are a grand total of 16 Android applications designed specifically for the tablet (IPAD has more than 65,000). Of course, Android smartphone applications work well, and developers have been in a hurry to update them to fit on a screen full Xoom. However, we downloaded the application too much restricted in some form. They also do not fill the screen entirely (which is actually crippling them on the big screen), displays a small icon, or stuck in a portrait mode.
From the tablets of applications available, applications CNN signifies a good thing for the platform, with a proper combination of multimedia web site content and navigation touch, essentially offering an alternative to CNN web site. It's still a bit buggy however, and prone to freezing, but future updates should be smooth all.
Thankfully, Gmail and other standard applications that ship with Xoom is much more polished, with Gmail displays the most drastic update. Those familiar with the old Gmail app Android app Honeycomb would love to see much stronger, offering a column that allows users to easily navigate through folders, read messages, and drag and drop emails.
Google map, which is basically the same as the smartphone version recently updated, looks great on the big screen and also very responsive. Android Market, the YouTube application and Google Books have all received graphics overhaul for application, better and stronger Film Studio to program portable, so users basic video editing tools for cutting and splicing tape. The browser interface is very clean sport and if you get Flash support soon, better than other mobile offering.
Entertainment is a different story. Netflix and Hulu applications are still MIA in the Android Market, though available for the iPad. Tab Galaxy has a Samsung video hub that offers a limited selection but the growth of first run movies and TV series. The Xoom does not exist like that. There is an application that presents the Flixster movie previews, features and applications TV.com CBS and Showtime programming, but stuck with a black space and screen size of a smartphone. To experience Xoom large capacity HD at launch, users will be stuck with YouTube, which is not really portable entertainment options beyond the keyboard and the occasional cat video Rick Roll.
Gaming
By Grant Hatchimonji
There are only a few tablets of applications and games a little more, but I can spend time with three of them: Gun Bros., PewPew, and Defender Dungeon: First Wave Deluxe, which comes pre-loaded on Xoom. The first thing that stood out to me is that they are still very simple.
It is difficult to make a case for the game in tablet when two of three games I play Dungeon Defender Gun-Bros and basically only tower defense game, while it only takes Asteroid PewPew. We have seen the top of the tower defense game (Factory vs. Zombies) and it is time to move and come up with something new to the tablet.
Another issue is the control scheme, which is inherent in the game crushed tablets given button-less design of the device. For example, the choice Dungeon Defender 'to have a single direction "pad" that, by design, the strength of your character to always move when you are frantically trying to point him in the right direction like a cruise missile out of control of the poor.
Simple games and lousy control scheme aside, the visual may have been the biggest disappointment of all. Despite of the Xoom's strong internally, the graphics are similar to those of the Nintendo DS. Soft texture and character models that blob with a display that easily outshined by the PlayStation Portable.
On a more positive note, the game menus are generally slim, good animation, and works well in a tablet format. And of course, the game runs smoothly and free from visual lag, but I would not expect anything less with the way they look.
Finally, the best part of my gaming experience in Xoom is sound. Twin speakers that graced the back of the device gives the game 'vote a certain level of honor, making them much richer than anything I've heard on previous tablets.
Conclusion
It's hard not to think Xoom released too fast. Not that seems in a hurry. Conversely, which Xoom is a damned fine piece of hardware and easy cream of technology-specification when the plants. Dual-core processor to keep things humming smoothly, and although we tried with widgets and applications, we can not flood the Tegra 2.
Only tablet Honeycomb has no application support is required to preach Xoom should buy ... yet.
We are willing to give Motorola and Verizon passed on the Flash player is missing and six-business-day 4G upgrade process because we assume the company will make good on the promise of 4G and full browsing. However, we can not ignore the lack of dedicated movie streaming applications at launch, especially considering how great HD content looks at Xoom. In addition, the idea of launching with only 16 tablet-specific applications seem almost funny.
Of course, what Xoom and Honeycomb do well, they are very good. Honeycomb live up to hype, the touch navigation is superb, beautiful view, and Google Maps, Gmail, video chat with Google Talk, and every tablet we tested application is very well aware, despite Grant's observation game.
Within a few months, will have a 4G Xoom, Flash support, and application of more - perhaps even offer a Netflix or Hulu. It also will compete Honeycomb from Samsung, Toshiba, LG and others, and perhaps lower prices. So it would be a better tablet. Now, this is a good tablet with promise.
Pro
OS honeycomb live up to hype
Amazing view
Great Tegra 2 performance
Cons
Android tablets limited application at the launch
Streaming movie selection is limited
Awkward management application in Honeycomb
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