If you’re in the market for a feature-packed Android tablet that doesn’t skimp on the build quality, the Motorola XOOM just might be for you. And it happens to be on sale for a hefty $323 off to boot.

The model of the Motorola XOOM on sale features a 10.1-inch touchscreen display, 32GB of internal memory, dual core 1GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, NVIDIA graphics, 10 hour average battery life, and both Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. There’s a 5MP camera on the back, along with GPS and Bluetooth. It is just powered by Android 3.0 Honeycomb, though I’m sure you can find a way to get a newer version of the OS on there.

This tablet is normally listed at $699.99, but it’s on sale for $376.99 on Amazon, complete with the free super saver shipping. If you hurry up and order really soon, it might arrive under your tree in time for Christmas morning.

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Are you in the market for a new Android tablet? Do you want something bigger than the 7-inch display on the Nexus 7 and do you need to have wireless data connectivity? A pretty great deal has popped up on the Internet for the Motorola Xoom. It’s unlocked and ready to do the 3G thing with your GSM carrier of choice and, better yet, it’s selling for just a touch over half price!

You might remember my review of the Motorola Xoom Android tablet last year. It’s a seriously solid Android Honeycomb tablet which can be updated to ICS. This version comes with both Wi-Fi and 3G to go along with its 10.1-inch display and 32GB of internal storage. Power comes by way of a dual-core 1GHz Cortex-A9 OMAP 4 processor, 1GB DRAM, and integrated NVIDIA graphics.

When you consider that this 3G-enabled tablet originally listed for $699.99, the current sale price of $379.99 sounds pretty darn good. That’s $320 (47%) off the list price and it comes with free super saver shipping too. Having it unlocked certainly helps too, especially if you plan on doing any sort of international traveling.

The post Unlocked 3G-Enabled Motorola Xoom Android Tablet for Half-Price appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Motorola has confirmed that out of 6,200 refurbished Xoom Wi-Fi tablets, 100 of them were still bearing previous customers’ data when they were sold on Woot.com. That means data such as email messages, passwords, bank account details, and media like photos and videos could have been on those devices when they reached the hands of new customers. If such info reaches the wrong hands, the original users might end up having a lot of sleepless nights in the future.

Motorola hasn’t so far given out details regarding how exactly this happened. They are just saying that the “information that may be accessible to the purchasers of the impacted refurbished tablets may include any information that the original user elected to store on the tablet”.

But to make sure that the previous customers do not end up becoming victims of information abuse, the company is offering a free 2-year subscription to Experian ProtectMyID identity theft alert service. (If you returned a Xoom between March and October 2011, you can sign up for the service by calling (866) 926-9803).

Motorola intends to retrieve the data loaded tablets from the new buyers. If you bought a Xoom tablet from Woot.com between October and December 2011, you can check whether your device is one of those 100 devices.

And to stay away from such troubles in the future, we recommend you to reset your device to factory settings before returning it to the company or selling it to someone, if it powers on that is. You can also keep the memory card with you or just erase everything on it.

The post Motorola Slips and Ships Refurbed Xoom Tablets With Old Customer Data appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The Motorola Xoom just got a whole of a lot more appealing thanks to a new OTA update to ICS. This update replaces the stock Honeycomb OS and comes just a week after Asus started its rollout of ICS to the Transformer Prime.

For now, only American Wi-FI users are receiving the update, though international and 3G/4G models should still be in line for this upgrade shortly (though no official timeline has been revealed). This could mean that the beginning of a huge shift of upgrades to ICS could be heading our way for all Tegra 2 tablets, our at least we can hope. Of course its really up to each manufacturer whether or not they choose to update its devices or not. Of course, even if you Honeycomb tablet never gets official support, you can pretty much guarantee that an ICS custom ROM will eventually arrive.

[ source ]

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Recently, many major tablets like the Asus Transformer Prime, have begun receiving Android 4.0 updates. In response, Motorola is bringing Ice Cream Sandwich to Motorola Xoom tablets – at least for a few lucky ones out there.

As part of a pilot program, only a few thousand select Xoom Wi-Fi owners will receive the update as part of the initial and private test. The way that Motorola approached this update was somewhat on the sly, without mentioning ICS in its emails sent to select Xoom owners a few days earlier.

The wording was as follows:

Thanks for your patience as we’ve waited for this project to begin. Because we are dealing with a Google Experience Device (GED) we have less insight to timing than we would usually have. However, I’m happy to announce that we will start the update this evening. Because it was delayed a few days, we will also have additional time to test; we will let it run through the weekend.

For now, this means that only lucky users get a taste of Ice Cream Sandwich, but I suppose the positive side that if something does go wrong, they have less users affected. If everything goes off without any major hitches, Motorola will shortly begin deploying ICS to all Xoom users en masse, although a specific timeframe for this wider launch has yet to be announced. Have you got ICS lately?

[ Source ]

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This year’s Black Friday sales offered some pretty appealing gadgets, but as the holiday season continues there are many more attractive deals on there way, from Cyber Monday and beyond.

One such deal is the Acer Iconia A500 10.1″ tablet at BestBuy. A 8GB model is just $229 with free shipping and a $10 gift card. The price cut is quite substantial for a 10-inch tablet that normally costs $300 or more.

Acer Iconia A500 is a solid performer powered by dual core Tegra 2 chip and weighing only 1.7 pounds. For the technically inclined, its specs reveal this:

• 1 GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2
• Li-Ion Battery with around 8 battery life
• WXGA HD touch screen (1280 x800)
• 1 GB of DDR2 RAM
• Internal Storage Type: eMMC
• 8GB of base storage
• SD Card Slot for expansion
• NVIDIA GeForce graphics
• Adobe Flash support
•  2MP Front Facing Webcam
• Outward 5MP digital camera
• Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth-Enabled
• Dolby Mobile Technology
• 2 USB 2.0 Ports
• HDMI Output
• Android 3.2 Honeycomb

The tablet runs stock Android 3.2 with unobtrusive Acer customizations, but for adventurous user there are some other custom ROMs and tweaks available from the Acer Iconia community of XDA Developers. Luckily, an active user community for the Iconia means that, in time, a ROM running Ice Cream Sandwich will most likely come to the tablet.

Thanks to all the power behind the hood and its active community of users, the Iconia certainly offers a fairly good deal even when compared to other hot Android tablets like the Xoom, Kindle Fire, and the Nook Tablet.

The downside? Expect this to go fast, as they are already sold out online. A good place to still look might be your local brick-and-mortar store. It’s also worth mentioning that  there have been price-slashed Iconia A500 sightings at Costco, too.

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The Apple iPad may still reign supreme in the world of consumer tablets, but the Android side of the equation is quickly picking up steam. While early Android tablets only ran on blown-up versions of the smartphone OS, Android 3.0 Honeycomb introduced a tablet-centric version of the platform with several tablet-centric optimizations. And the first to take advantage of these optimizations was the Motorola Xoom.

Now that it’s been officially updated to Android 3.1 (some have even gotten up to 3.2) and it’s competing against several other Honeycomb tablets, how does the Xoom stack up? Let’s have a look.

Key Features and Specifications

The version of the Motorola Xoom that I had to review as the Xoom MZ604. This comes with 32GB of internal storage capacity and Wi-Fi connectivity, but there is no 3G radio to be seen. The juice comes by way of an NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core 1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor with a ULP GeForce GPU and 1GB of RAM.

As has become the norm for so many tablets in this range, the Motorola Xoom comes with a 10.1-inch TFT capacitive touchscreen with an effective resolution of 800×1280 pixels. That works out to 149 ppi pixel density, which is a touch higher than the 132ppi that you find on the current iPad 2. Other key specs include the 730 grams of weight, stereo speakers, gyroscope, accelerometer, microSD expansion, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP support, 5MP rear camera, 2MP front camera, mini-HDMI out, and microUSB port.

Overall Design and Usability

It won the award at CES 2011 and Motorola is quick to point that out on the packaging for the Xoom.

In terms of the device itself, you get a series of high quality plastics with a very smooth back. The screen is extremely glossy, so like so many other touchscreens, it gets riddled with greasy fingerprints very quickly. Since it is Honeycomb, most of what you’ll be doing is in landscape mode and everything has been laid out accordingly.

The (unlabeled) connection ports are on the bottom. Strangely, while there is a microUSB port, it cannot be used for charging; you have to use the provided wall charger to top up the internal battery. That takes away from a fair bit of versatility, especially when you’re on the road. The microSD card slot is on the top (which didn’t work until Android 3.1 update), as well as the 3.5mm headset jack. Volume buttons are along the left edge.

One thing that I didn’t like was the placement of the power button. It’s on the back of the Xoom, in the same part of the housing as the camera, flash, and one of the speakers. I suppose this makes for a more natural movement when holding the tablet, but I would have preferred they stuck to an edge like nearly everyone else.

General Performance and Battery Life

I can’t say that I was terribly displeased with the Xoom, but there really wasn’t much else going on that would make me choose the Xoom over the several other Honeycomb alternatives out there. It is on the heavier side of things at 730 grams, which is 50 grams more than the Asus Eee Pad Transformer (sans keyboard dock, of course) and nearly 200 grams more than the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. That’s some serious extra heft.

The orientation sensor seemed to be a bit on the laggy side, as it could take some time before the screen would switch between landscape and portrait modes. Similarly, swiping between the different homescreens wasn’t quite as smooth as I had hoped. This seems to be a common concern with several Android tablets and it’s something that I hope is addressed in future updates; maybe it’s just a software/firmware thing.

As far as battery life is concerned, your mileage will certainly vary. Under moderate usage, I was able to get a little more than a day out of the Xoom. This is with Wi-Fi turned on and a couple of apps constantly running in the background. Lighter usage could see about three days.

Quadrant Benchmark Score

To test the performance of the Motorola Xoom, I ran the full benchmark on Quadrant Standard v1.1.7. This benchmark measures the performance of the CPU, memory, graphics, and other related areas. The overall score achieved by the Xoom on the first try was just 1593 (as pictured), but I ran the test again after rebooting the device and got a score of 1739.

Some people have argued that benchmarks for Android devices can be a little unreliable, but that’s what we have to go with. That range of scores puts the Xoom right in line with other Tegra2-powered Honeycomb tablets; I ran the benchmark on an LG Optimus Pad for comparison and got a score of 1700 even.

Conclusion

The Motorola Xoom is a solid product, but it is difficult to recommend it over similar Honeycomb tablets. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a lot lighter and the Eee Pad Transformer has that optional keyboard dock, for instance. I do like the slightly smaller footprint that the Xoom has (compared to the Eee Pad), but if you wanted smaller, you likely would be considering an 8.9 or even 7.0 inch tablet instead.

The placement of the power button will be hit and miss, depending on your preferences, but I really dislike the lack of support for USB charging. The speakers are reasonably loud, but because they are in the back, the directionality of the sound may not be ideal. I like Android tablets and I think they have a bright future, but the Xoom is very middle of the road for me right now… which is pretty much the story of most $399-$599 Honeycomb tablets these days.

The post Motorola Xoom Android 3.1 Tablet Review appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

With the noted exception of Samsung, which has been able to snag a 10% market share with its Galaxy Tab family of tablets, the other guys haven’t been doing quite as well. Motorola shipped 250,000 Xoom tablets in two months, but you have to realize that Apple sold 25 million iPads in 14 months. That’s hardly a dent in Steve Jobs’ side.

The “supersized” Android smartphone is gaining in popularity and the companies think they can capitalize on this instead. After all, there is no “supersized” iDevice (yet). This would encompass all the smartphones with screens between four and five inches, like the HTC Desire HD, Motorola Droid X, and Dell Streak 5.

I’m still a fan of Android tablets and I hope that market segment continues to grow, but if heavy hitters like Motorola and LG are going to shift away, that might not help the Android tablet cause. So much for Honeycomb dominance.

The post Should we expect fewer Google Android tablets next year? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The same guys thought they should extend their drop tests to other tablets as well and their most recent experiment involves the iPad, Motorola’s Xoom tablet and Samsung Galaxy Tab.

The iPad was the first to be dropped from waist level and did not fare well at all. The tablet became unusable after the drop or, to quote one of the testers “the screen feels like it’s gonna start popping out, just fall apart.” Galaxy Tab was then dropped and “survived kind of” the shock with only minor cracks. Motorola Xoom was the last to undergo the test but became unusable just like the iPad. And the winner of the most-fragile-tablet title is the iPad.

In a nutshell, the test results are as follows: 3. Galaxy Tab; 2. Motorola Xoom; 1. iPad

The post iPad 2 vs. Motorola Xoom vs. Galaxy Tab In A Drop Test appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

I’ve got some good news and some bad news for all the Honeycomb fans in the audience. The good news is that you don’t have to pony up for a new wireless data contract in order to get your hands on a Xoom; you can get the WiFi-only model instead. The bad news is that it’s not particularly cheap.

It has now been confirmed by the big M that the WiFi-only Motorola Xoom is indeed for real and it will be available for sale starting on March 27. You’ll be able to find on the shelves, both virtual and physical, at places like Amazon, Best Buy, Costco, RadioShack, Sam’s Club, Staples and Walmart. The price? A cool $599.

I know what you’re thinking. “But the iPad 2 starts at $499.” Yes, but that’s for the 16GB model. If you move up to the 32GB WiFi-only iPad 2, it’s also listed at the same $599 asking price as the WiFi-only Motorola Xoom, which also happens to have 32GB of memory. That gets backed by Tegra2, a gig of RAM (more than iPad 2), 5MP autofocus camera, a 10.1-inch display and hopefully one day Flash!

All said, getting on board with Android 3.0 Honeycomb is looking reasonably competitive, especially since the Xoom beats the iPad 2 spec-for-spec. It’ll take time, but I think the Android tablet revolution will be much like the Android smartphone revolution. Hello market share.

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