Motorola Xoom 10.1 Inch Android 3.1 Tablet PC Review

Tablets have hit the market in a big way, and one of the big ones is the Motorola Xoom. Tablet PC's are meant to give you a lot of the functionality of a PC in a much more portable size. Some are basic e-readers, and some add internet connectivity. And others will add some multimedia abilities. But with the Motorola Xoom, it comes fully loaded.

It's features and spec's include:
GENERAL TABLET. ANDROID™ PLATFORM
Android 3.1 (Honeycomb)
CAMERA
5 MP
WEB CAM
2 MP
DIGITAL ZOOM
Yes
FLASH
Dual-LED flash
FOCUS
Automatic
MUSIC & VIDEO ENABLED1
MUSIC PLAYER
Android™ Music Player
VIDEO CAPABLE
720p video playback
VIDEO CAPTURE
720p video capture
PLAYABLE FORMATS
AAC, H.263, H.264, MP3, MPEG-4, ACC+ Enhanced, OGG, MIDI, AMR NB, AAC+
STREAMING MEDIA
Audio, Video, Internet Radio
.Back to top .MUSIC & VIDEO EDITING SOFTWARE
Movie Studio
POWER
BATTERY TYPE
24 W-hr
BROWSING OVER WIFI
up to approx. 10 hrs.
MP3 PLAYBACK
up to approx. 3.3 days
STANDBY TIME2
up to approx. 14 days
VIDEO PLAYBACK TIME
up to approx. 10 hrs.
MESSAGING
EMAIL3
Corporate Sync, Google Mail, POP3/IMAP (embedded), Corporate Directory Lookup (GAL)
INSTANT MESSAGING (IM)3
Google Talk™
CONNECTIVITY
WIFI
802.11 a,b,g,n
BLUETOOTH® TECHNOLOGY4
Stereo Bluetooth® technology 2.1+EDR+HID
WEB BROWSER
Android HTML Web kit, Tabbed browsing, Chrome bookmark sync, Incognito mode, Form auto-fill
SYNCHRONIZATION
Corporate Sync, GOTA
CONNECTOR TYPE
Micro USB; HDMI out
DATA TRANSMISSION RATE5
USB 2.0 (High Speed)
.Back to top .CONNECTIVITY GPS AND LOCATION SERVICES1
eCompass, aGPS (assisted) with Google Maps™, Google Latitude™, Google Maps Street View, barometer
HEADSET JACK
3.5 mm
INTERNET AND GAMES WEB ACCESS
GAMES
Cordy, Dungeon Defenders
ADOBE FLASH PLAYER
Adobe® Flash® 10 Player
ANDROID MARKET™
GOOGLE MOBILE SERVICES GMAIL™
GOOGLE MAPS™
(version 5.0)
GOOGLE TALK™
with Video Chat
GOOGLE EBOOKS™
YOUTUBE™
INTERFACE LIGHT-RESPONSIVE DISPLAY
CUSTOM NAVIGATION
5 fully customizable home screens
PINCH TO ZOOM
TOUCH SCREEN
VIRTUAL KEYBOARD
Portrait and Landscape
VOICE COMMANDS
MICROPHONE
Built-in microphone
.Back to top .PERSONALIZATION WALLPAPERS3
Preloaded and downloadable, Live wallpaper
PHYSICAL DISPLAY SIZE
10.1-in.; WXGA (1280x 800 pixels; 150 pixels / inch), HD 720p
WEIGHT
708 grams (WiFi)
730 grams (3G)
SIZE (H X W X D)
249.1 x 167.8 x 12.9 mm
ANTENNA TYPE
Internal
FORM FACTOR
Tablet
MATERIALS AND FINISH
Anodized aluminum and soft touch
PRODUCTIVITY AND SOFTWARE
CALCULATOR
CALENDAR
Yes
AIRPLANE MODE
APPLICATIONS
QuickOffice® Viewer
CLOCK
Alarm clock
TECHNOLOGY
MEMORY6
up to 32 GB on board
PROCESSOR SPEED
1GHz Dual Core
ACCELEROMETER
Yes
SENSORS
Proximity, ambient light, barometer, gyroscope


The quality is very good. Fit and finish was very good with excellent quality components. I like the all black design. And it has a really solid, high quality feel. But with that being said, it's weight to some could be a bit much for a tablet, it is a bit on the heavy side. And for the rear cover, they used a soft black finish. If you are one who likes to keep their device clean, it will be more difficult to wipe off the fingerprints.

As far as design goes, the front is all glass, and same bezel on the sides. There are small volume up and down buttons on the top left corner. The power button I found in an odd place, on the back next to the speakers, rear camera sensor and flash. Although it usually did not get accidentally pushed at that location, so I guess it is in a good location. To the left of the 5 MP is a dual LED flash. The 10.1" 16x9 format screen is awesome, and I much prefer that format screen over the one on the iPad.

The hardware and software it comes with is also top. Software comes in the form of Android Honeycomb 3.1, which was specifically optimized for tablets. As previously mentioned, the screen is a 10.1. And the power under the hood is the NVDIA Dual-core Tegra 2 processor running at 1GHz. It has been getting a lot of buzz, and for good reason. There is a 32 GB hard drive for plenty of storage, and the model provided has a built-in radio of Verizon's network. That means it works like a cell phone as far as being able to go online while you are on the go.

Motorola seems to have done a good design job. They also picked some great components. Now it's time to see how well it all comes together.

The Android 3.1 OS was fun to work with. Moving between screens and adding widgets and customizing it was pretty simple. The capacitive screen was nice and responsive. The screen was also pleasant to look at, even at off angles. Colors were well saturated with good resolution and contrast. Games looked great on it with excellent colors. Video also looked very good on it, with great resolution. I was surprised at how artifact free the images were. Shadow detail was even pretty good. I wasn't expecting a lot from the built in speakers. And they delivered about the sound I was expecting. Resolution was ok, and the sound was fairly full, with little low end extension. But what else would you expect from a pair of small speakers built into a tablet. And there is one critical word to remember when it comes to audio: headphones. Yes, there is an included headphone jack. Remember the built-in speakers were designed for personal use, at lower volumes. So do yourself a favor and don't blow the speakers. When you feel like rocking out, throw on some headphones, then turn up the volume. And it sounds a whole lot better!

The built in 5MP camera also worked very well. I was pleased with the sharpness for a 5MP sensor. And the included software worked very well, and provided a lot of tweaks. You can even zoom in up to a 8x. Although the more you zoom in, the more pixelation you get. Using it as a camcorder also provided good resolution, and fairly natural colors. The dual LED light was actually pretty bright, and you could also turn it on to use with the camcorder functionality. The sensor however did give better images in well lit surroundings. All in all, I was pleased with it's camera performance.

In the end, the built-in Tegra 2 processor handled everything I threw very well. And Angry Birds looked great! However, I was a little surprised when I had a coulpe of minor glitches in the display with a couple of flickers when playing Angry Birds. The thinner Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 with the same processor worked similarly well, but was glitch free. I wasn't too concerned though, as any computer device can do that. The Motorola Xoom was a lot of fun to do everything on. Photos, Videos, games, music, web surfing, The Motorola Xoom did it all great.

Motorola built a great product in the Motorola Xoom. It truly was a pleasure to use, and the built-in wireless through Verizon just made it more functional. And the Built-in Hardware is actually powerful enough to handle just about anything you throw at it. Based on it's design, feature, and performance, the Motorola Xoom has earned our Highly Recommended Award. For more info and complete specs, check out their website at www.motorola.com
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