Motorola Xoom: First Impressions

After the initial launch of the iPad, everyone seemed to have gone into a tablet frenzy. It wasn’t until recently that companies started to put out real competition for the iPad. So, when I was trying to decide which tablet I would like to receive this year for my birthday present, I was stuck. The Playbook, while amazing, isn’t too friendly without a Blackberry. The size was also a large factor, as my Motorola Atrix was too close to the size of the Playbook. It came down to the iPad 2 and the Motorola Xoom. As an early birthday present, I received the Xoom, and couldn’t be happier.

At first glance, this sleek tablet is pretty large. With a 10.1” display and weighing in at 730g (1.6 lbs), it is by far the largest of the tablets I was looking at (iPad2, Playbook, Xoom). The size actually reminded me of my netbook, something I will probably using a lot less of now that I have received my tablet.

So why is the Xoom my personal preference? I got the Motorola Atrix as soon as it was available for AT&T. With its beefed up features, and the NVIDIA Tegra dual core processor, I just had to get the most powerful phone on the market. The Xoom has the same processor, and as of yet, I have not seen a lag on my tablet. It also runs on the Honeycomb platform, the newest and sleekest of all the Android platforms.

Pros: Being pretty well acquainted with the Android platform, the transition from phone to tablet was an easy one. A simple download of Adobe flash player from the android marketplace, and flash video is at my fingertips. I can hook up my tablet to a large TV with a micro HDMI cord and stream directly from it (like my Atrix). The camera has flash, something that is necessary in normal picture taking (unlike the iPads). There is a dedicated application for checking your email. In fact, it encourages you to integrate your Google account with the tablet (take that Playbook).

Cons: The colors aren’t as vibrant as any of the other tablets in the marketplace, and speakers are nowhere near as spectacular as the Playbooks. For some reason, Motorola decided not to add in a micro HDMI cord with this device, even though the Atrix came with one. While there is a port for the micro SD card, it is still useless, as Motorola has yet to put up and update that enable the feature. The choices of covers are limited in comparison to the iPad as well.

Overall: 7/10

I knew the tablet would be an oversized version of my phone, but it doesn’t make it any less amazing. The points lost are for screen quality, sound quality, and the annoying Micro SD card business.