As far as tablets go, many users will believe that Apple has squarely cornered that portion of the market with the iPad, but Motorola has released an alternative that sure gives the iPad a run for its money.
The Android-powered Motorola Xoom is a really cool piece of technology. The size is similar to an iPad, so it’s perfect for watching videos, playing games and just general navigation. The design of the housing is efficient and sturdy, and all the buttons are located at comfortable places.
Turning the device on, users will notice that it takes a bit longer to boot up than a normal tablet, but that is to be expected from one of the fastest tablets on the market. It might seem like a contradiction, but the tablet has a lot of features it needs to load before it’s operational.
Being welcomed by the blue homepage, users will be able to jump into pretty much anything straight away. Being Android, users might want to take some time to familiarize themselves with all the apps and where to find them. It’s always baffling why all Android devices don’t work and look the same, as that would make navigating the menus so much easier.
On the home screen, the device supports five “blades” for app shortcuts, which is more than enough for any user. The menu and setting shortcuts are all grouped together at the bottom in a neat strip, ready for easy and quick access.
A cool feature of the menu is the ability to see the last used apps in a neat side menu, so there is no need to go looking for the app if it needs to be used again. But it can be a bit confusing, as it could seem like those apps aren’t actually closed, but just minimised to the side.
Under the hood, the device uses Android 3.1 Honeycomb and is powered by a Nvidia Tegra 2 T20, 1 GHz dual-core processor. It’s more than enough and it’s truly capable of doing more than one thing at a time.
It features 1 GB DDR2 SDRAM, and in terms of storage, the 32GB internal memory and the external slot for a microSD card is more than a user might need. Speaking of slots, the units also has a slot for a 3G card, which is a really good thing.
Working on the 1280×800 screen with an aspect ratio of 16:10 ensures that graphics and videos are shown at the highest quality. A large portion of the market use tablets to view videos, and it’s incredibly important for manufacturers to produce tablets with exceptional quality screens – which the ULP GeForce 333 MHz delivers.
The Multi-touch touchscreen’s response is good, and typing text can easily be done in the same fashion as a traditional keyboard. The only problem is that these screens by nature are finger-print magnets, but that can be kept to a minimum by buying a protective cover.
Coupled with 3G access, the device can also function as a Wi-Fi hotspot. It’s a feature that’s standard with Android devices, but the Xoom seemed to just make it easier. A connection is established quickly after set-up, and kept throughout the session.
As a video player, the device supports up to 720p video playback and plays H.263, H.264, MPEG4, and VP8 video formats by default, but a small app download will extend the formats quickly. For sensor activities, the device makes use of a gyroscope, magnetometer, accelerometer and a barometer.
Although all tablets essentially function in the same way, the Motorola Xoom is one of the best alternatives to Apple’s iPad. Besides the fact that it runs on Android, the CPU and memory run incredibly fast, the screen is responsive and crystal clear and everything works the way it should.
The only problem with the tablet is an issue that plagues all tablets and that is the sound – it’s really not great. But luckily there are a couple of accessories that fix the problem.
Charlie Fripp – Consumer Tech editor
This sounds like you just described the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.