A Very good Xoom review

A Very good Xoom review
Ars reviews the Motorola Xoom

The conclusions are

If you are looking for the best tablet available today, then look no further than Cupertino. If you are an Android enthusiast and you want a good tablet that runs the same software as your phone, you should wait a few months for everything to solidify before you decide which Android tablet you want. Don't jump for the Xoom just because it's the first—they rushed it out prematurely hoping to capitalize on exactly that.

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In saying that read the review. The Xoom has a lot of potential. But right now it's just rushed.

I think it's all bells and whistles right now. But I agree it has potential. I'm waiting to see real-life user reviews for the HP Touch Pad whenever it comes out. The Touch Pad is very cool from what I've seen.

MYmacROX said:

I think it's all bells and whistles right now. But I agree it has potential. I'm waiting to see real-life user reviews for the HP Touch Pad whenever it comes out. The Touch Pad is very cool from what I've seen.

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Agree!

The Chevy Volt is a great concept, but the bottom-line is how does it actually work and what does it cost.

So far haven't seen anything that competes favorably with iPad 2. But, that could change tomorrow.

I just stopped by Best Buy specifically to check out a Xoom.

In danger of becoming a fan-boy, I gotta say.... I don't get the hype of the Xoom.

It may have better specs than the iPad 2 (faster, memory, etc.), but it felt SLOW. Frustratingly so. Swipe your finger.... wait for the screen to change. The layout also seems confusing, but maybe I'm just used to iOS. Feels like an unfinished product. Feels like Windows. And that's no compliment (from me).

After 10 minutes messing with the Xoom, I go check out the old iPad on display. Lightning fast, intuitive, bright. It just seems polished compared to the Xoom.

Sad to see the Xoom was a slow experience, especially considering the fact that it's vanilla Android 3.0 and isn't skinned. When other companies get their skinned models out it's just going to be worse.

built in barometer?
ILL TAKE 20!

I had the same impression, for a supercharged dual core...it's slooooow. in fact at my local Verizon I had the liberty to try the iPad 1 and the XOOM back to back, and, sadly, the iPad 1 is way faster than the XOOM. I am very familure with Honeycomb, and frankly it is a slow os by nature, they try to do too much.

It's like Vista.

I've been dying to try one out just to see what it's like, but the more reviews I read, the less excited I am to try it. For a while I've been kicking around the idea of moving over to Android as some of the hardware has become very compelling and the flexibility of the software is attractive, but in the end I'm pretty sure I'll stick with iOS. The biggest things I really wanted to get that Android has are a phone with a bigger screen and LTE connectivity. I'm hoping Apple will bring out a bigger screen iPhone, and LTE will be bittersweet because as soon as you get the speed to really use a cell network, you're going to be pinned down to a limited data plan.

Not to mention, AT&T's HSPDA+ speeds on 3G are faster than Verizon's LTE speeds so LTE at this point isn't really compelling.

fleurya said:

I've been dying to try one out just to see what it's like, but the more reviews I read, the less excited I am to try it. For a while I've been kicking around the idea of moving over to Android as some of the hardware has become very compelling and the flexibility of the software is attractive, but in the end I'm pretty sure I'll stick with iOS. The biggest things I really wanted to get that Android has are a phone with a bigger screen and LTE connectivity. I'm hoping Apple will bring out a bigger screen iPhone, and LTE will be bittersweet because as soon as you get the speed to really use a cell network, you're going to be pinned down to a limited data plan.

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Having owned and used an Android (2.2) device for nearly a year, I can honestly say you're not missing much (if anything). Unless of course, you enjoy troubleshooting your phone, like you would troubleshoot a PC.

Android, unfortunately, is plagued by the same shortcomings as its Linux underpinnings. Nothing is standard, nothing is consistent, nothing is intuitive. Multitasking is a joke (there is absolutely no control inherent to the OS of running apps, you spend all of your time killing off apps you don't want running, lest your battery be drained within a few hours).

The best Android apps are worse than the crappiest iOS apps. Mostly because nearly all of them appear to be coded in Java. Those that aren't are often tuned to a particular screen size or release of the OS. Although the OS is pretty stable, apps crash constantly.

Then of course, there's the promise of updates to the OS.. only to have to wait for months for your manufacturer to get their custom GUI running on it stably (which apparently the definition of stable varies from manufacturer to manufacturer).

My personal favorite hangup - at least of 2.2 running on my HTC Droid - is when the phone rings, you unlock the phone, only to find that the GUI has crashed and is now rebooting. So, your phone is ringing while you get to watch the HTC splash screen come up and eventually the UI appear. And by that time, the call's already gone to voicemail.

So, while Android has a lot going for it on paper, it is, as with many Google products, a continual work in progress. And unfortunately, since no one exerts any authority over the product, will likely always be so.

Just my $0.02... but I was very glad to finally get my iPhone. The iOS front-end might not be as flashy as my Droid Incredibles, but I'll take stability over flash any day.