Well here it is folks, the Motorola Xoom in all its glory. For months we have been hearing about how great it’s going to be and how much we will be able to do with it. For this review we will be finding out whether or not all the hype was right or wrong, and whether the high price is worth it all.

Features

• NVIDIA Tegra dual-core processor T20
  Features a 1.0GHz processor speed, 600MHz system bus and 1MB L2 cache.
• 1GB DDR2 memory
  For multitasking power.
• 10.1″ high-definition widescreen touch-screen display
  Showcases movies and games in stunning clarity.
• 32GB hard drive
  Offers spacious storage.
• ULP GeForce graphics
  For lush images. HDMI output for connection to an HDTV.
• Built-in 2.0MP webcam
  Makes it easy to video chat with family and friends. 5.0MP camera allows you to capture and play back high-definition video.
• High-speed USB 2.0 port
  For fast digital video, audio and data transfer.
• Built-in 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n)
  Connect to the Internet without wires.
• Embedded 3G mobile broadband technology with EVDO Rev A
  Keeps you connected. Upgradeable to 4G LTE. (Wireless service contract required; sold separately. Check with carrier for coverage area and availability in your area.)
• Bluetooth 2.1 EDR + HID interface
  Easily link with other Bluetooth-enabled devices, such as a mobile phone or MP3 player.
• Weighs only 1.5 lbs. and measures just 0.5″ thin
  For lightweight portability.
• Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system
  Provides a stable platform.
• Google Mobile Services
  Include Google Maps 5.0 with 3D interaction, access to more than 3 million Google eBooks and Google Talk with video chat.

One note about the 4G LTE upgrade. This is going to be a hardware upgrade so you will need to send the tablet back to the Motorola for upgrade. Because you have to send the device in, you could be a couple weeks without your tablet.

Design

The Xoom measures 9.8″ x 6.6″ x 0.5″ and weighs 1.5 lbs. Compare this to the iPad which measures 9.56″x 7.47″ x 0.5″ and weighs 1.5 lbs. The Xoom is only slightly smaller on only one side, and the same weight. This isn’t much of a selling point; however, the iPad only has a 9.7″ screen and the Xoom has a 10.1″ screen.

The front of the Xoom features the screen, web camera, privacy LED, notification LED, and charging LED. The web camera and privacy LED are both at the top of the screen. The privacy LED lights up when you are using the front facing camera, and it is a reminder that you can be seen by others. The notification LED is on the right side just under the Verizon logo. This LED will let you know when you have new messages or other things that needs your attention. The Charging LED is below the screen and just about the charging port. This LED is suppose to come on when the Xoom is plugged in, but I could only get mine to work if the tablet was completely turned off.

Front

One thing you immediately notice about the front is that there aren’t any touch buttons. This is done because one of the new features of Android 3.0 is that all the buttons are in the software. As you can see from this screenshot the buttons in the bottom left of the screen are back, home, and show previous apps. The show previous apps button is like what happened when you would hold down the home button of previous Android versions.

Front

One thing you may notice is that it is missing the menu button. This button only shows up when an app has a menu. For example when I load the kindle app you can see that a new button appears.

Menu Button

Because there isn’t a menu button getting to the settings is a little more difficult. Instead of pressing the menu button on the home screen and hitting the settings button. You now have to press on the clock, then press on the bigger clock, then press the settings button. for the most part the settings window is exactly the same as before.

Home

I have to warn you upfront that the screen is glossy, which makes it impossible to see outside, and it is also a fingerprint magnet. You are going to have to clean this screen several times a day.

The screen has really good display angles. As you can see from the image below, no matter what direction I turn the Xoom I am able to see the screen clearly.

Screen Angles

On the left are the volume up and down buttons. If your thinking that they are quite small then you are right. I have to hunt for them every time I need them. It think for a tablet this size they could have made these buttons a bit larger.

Volume

The top of the Xoom is a headphone jack and a little slide out drawer that holds the microSD card, and a 4G SIM card which can only be used after the Xoom has received its 4G upgrade. Obviously the SIM card will only be used if on a different network than Verizon. In this release the microSD card is also disabled until Android 3.0 supports it. The update should download automatically. I am quite disappointed that Motorola decided to use a microSD slot instead of a full size one.

MicroSD

MicroSD

The bottom has a few more items including a micro USB, mini HDMI, some kind of dock connector, and the AC adapter plug. One again the USB port is only for transferring data to and from the tablet, it will not charge the tablet. For charging you need to use the AC adapter. It is really a pain to have to carry around two cords, but I guess the bigger size of the tablet does not allow for USB charging.

Connectors

The back features camera, two speakers, and the power button. The camera on the back is much higher resolution than the one on front. This camera will be used for taking pictures and recording 720p video. Because of the size of this tablet it is not very practical as a camera, but it is nice to have the hardware just in case. The back also has a rubbery texture to it. This is nice because it is much easier to grip.

Back

Several apps on the tablet have gotten significant upgrades. One of those is the market. As you can see from the image below the market has a completely new layout. Another feature of the new market is that when you download a new app is automatically add an icon on your screen. Be warned that many of the apps in the market are not yet optimized for tablets and so they will show up really small. Other apps don’t work at all. Since there isn’t any kind of warning about which ones do and don’t work you just have to try out each one. Hopefully with time they will all be updated.

Market Home

Market App

Another app that has been reworked is the music app. As you can see it now uses up more of the screen and has much larger icons to show the album art.

Music Albums

Music Songs

The YouTube has also been reworked to take advantage of the larger screen of a tablet. As you can see it now shows the video and a bunch of other content. You can double tap the video to make it full screen.

YouTube Menu

YouTube Video

Gmail has also gotten a makeover. As you can see it now shows a list of your email at the same time that is shows the body of the email. This is much more like a desktop email app, and is much easier to use.

Email Wide

Email

The last app to get a big redesign is the Google Books app. This app now shows the books you own in a carosel that you can easily flip through. It also has a really nice page turning animation that makes it look like a real book turning pages.

Books

Book Pages

Book Page Turn

One app that did not get a significant upgrade, and I wish it did, is the Gallery. The Gallery is a very basic app for displaying pictures and videos, but one of the basic features that it is missing is the ability to display the filenames. there is a little “i” icon at the top of the screen and when clicked it will display the filename for the currently selected item, but it would be much nicer to have the names under the videos.

Gallery

Movies

Gallery Movies Info

Performance

Performance testing on a tablet is just like on a PC or Laptop. There are a variety of tools available to test the CPU, memory, graphics, and filesystem. Before we get to the actual tests lets take a look at the hardware inside the Motorola Xoom.

With a powerful processor, lots of RAM, and a boat load of memory I am expecting great things from this tablet and high marks in the performance tests.

I will be comparing the Xoom against my Droid Incredible, which is running a custom ROM, a Viewsonic G Tablet, and a Velocity Cruz table, both running a stock ROM.

The first test I ran is Quadrant, this test goes through many aspects of the tablet including, CPU, Memory, I/O, 2D Graphics, and 3D Graphics and at the displays a single score for everything. As you can see the Xoom once again gets a much higher score.

Quadrant

The next test is called PI. This only tests the CPU and it does this by making it calculate PI and reporting the time it took to complete the task. For this test lower scores are the best. As you can see the Xoom has the best time for calculating PI, but it just barely beat out the G Tablet. Since both the Xoom and the G Tablet have the same processor it makes sense that they would have similar scores

PI

The next two tests are for graphics. The first test is call fps2d and simply draws a 2D ball that moves around the screen, the app then calculates the FPS. This time I was surprised to see that my HTC Incredible got a higher score.

fps2D

Finally the last test is Nenamark, it renders a 3D video and at the end displays FPS for the video. As you can see the Xoom and the G Tablet got the same score. This is most likely because they both have the Tegra 2 processor.

Nenamark

Linpack

On to the battery test. Since there isn’t an app yet that does a battery test I had to invent my own. For this test I loaded up the Xoom with a bunch of movies and played them one after another until the battery died. I also set the screen brightness, and volume to 50% and turned off WiFi and 3G. I started the test a 6:38am and it took all the way until 3:55pm for the battery to run out. That is an fantastic 9 hours and 28 minutes. Not quite as good as the G tablets 10 hours and 20 minutes, but still a great amount of battery life.

Support and Warranty

The Motorola Xoom only includes a 1 year warranty, ugg. I can only shake my head in disbelief at this news. For $800 Motorola and its partners can do much better than a measly 1 year warranty.

Support is through the normal methods of Phone, Email, and Web.

Conclusion

The Motorola Xoom has a lot of potential, I am really excited about the new interface, and the new apps. The screen is beautiful, albeit glossy, and the performance is fantastic. however, despite all the positives I think the release was a bit premature. This is made very clear by the fact that both Flash and the SD card slot are both not working in this release. The high price, and required 1 month of data are also big negatives in my book. Also if you are really looking forward the the 4G capabilities, it will be a huge negative to have to send it off to Motorola for the upgrade.

If you are like me and you don’t want or need the data then I really don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t wait for the WiFi only version. Not only will it give Adobe and others time to fix their software, but it will be less expensive and not have the lame required data fees. It will also give online retailers time to get it in stock and hopefully we can skip the high tax rates in most states. My advice is to avoid this release and wait for the WiFi only Xoom. Or if you must have data then at least wait until the 4G is released so you don’t have to be without the tablet for several weeks.

JusTech'n editors' rating
Features Design Performance Warranty Support Price