Motorola XOOM: A second look…

Suffice it to say, I love my tablet. Sure it’s got tons of faults and it’s a very niche product, but I definitely love it. I’m not sure, however, if I would buy it again, now that I’ve had the chance to use it for a few months. Back when I got the XOOM, it was the premier Android tablet on the market (and the only Honeycomb one to date); now, the market has several other very worthy contenders and I’m not so sure I would go the XOOM route again.

The potential contenders

There are but a handful of tablets I would consider now and they are predominantly Android based. There’s no particular reason for it other than that the platform is [relatively] open and it doesn’t take too much work to get the tablet customized to the way you like it, down to changing the core UI. The contenders, in no particular order are:

• Apple iPad2
• HP TouchPad
• Acer Iconia A500
• Motorola XOOM WiFi
• ASUS Transformer
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1v

The obvious three are the iPad2, the Galaxy Tab 10.1v and the Touchpad, all for totally different reasons.
iPad2
The iPad2 is a no-brainer: accessories galore, a mature hardware platform, plenty of market penetration, plenty of [potential] support via forums etc. This all stacks against a relatively closed platform (having not spent very much time with jail-breaking, I could be mistaken for how easy it actually is). From my experience with it though, the Apple experience is pre-defined: you work within the customization framework provided by iOS and you tweak within the options they provide you. Which, let’s be honest, isn’t a whole lot beyond skinning and rearranging some icons. From what I understand of the iOS tweaking side of things (which, admitedly isn’t a whole lot), there’s not a whole lot that can be done with over/under-clocking etc. (although, to their credit, it’s not often needed).
A big turn-off for me is that the iPad2 is, from a hardware perspective a compromise compared even to Apple’s own iPhone4. It just seems to me that the “big brother” product should pack better performance/specs across the board (to offset the fact that it’s bigger/heavier or whatnot) and the iPad2 simply doesn’t. Consider:

• The iPhone4 packs a way superior pixel density (has almost the same resolution as the way-bigger iPad2). This isn’t such a big deal as it could be as consumers are tolerant of this.
• The iPhone4 has a 5MP rear, 0.3MP front camera compared to the 0.7MP rear and 0.3MP front camera on the iPad2). Sure, people aren’t likely to use their tablet as a full out camera but that’s a hell of a drop). If anything, it should have packed a 3MP rear shooter like the majority of “budget smart-devices”. Lack of flash on the rear camera for the iPad2 as well.

Sure, the iPad2 packs more processing power (although not more RAM), but that’s assumed. It is worth noting that neither iPhone4 nor the iPad2 are performance slouches so the real-world observable improvement in performance isn’t exactly a night-and-day as the compromise on the camera. Do people use their tablets as shooters? Not really. But should there be a compromise going from a really portable device to a not-as-portable one? Definitely not.
TouchPad
This is another no-brainer. After the firesale, there’s no reason not to buy this tablet. There’s nothing particularly special about this tablet (I think it’s relatively elegant, contrary to most reviewers, but that’s just aesthetics). There are a few reasons not to get the tablet (at the pre-firesale price point):

• No rear camera at all (although it’s worth noting that the 1.3MP front camera on the TouchPad out-pixels both cameras on the iPad2 put together).
• Whether you like it or not, I just don’t think the tablet space has room for another OS. WebOS could have made a decent dent on the market – it just needed a lot of marketing/development commitment from HP (which was relatively lacking).

From my brief time with the TouchPad, it seemed to bring elements of the iPad2, PlayBook and common Honeycomb elements together. This isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing, just an observation.
Galaxy Tab 10.1v
Not that this tablet is even available where I live, but it’s “popular” enough that I should consider why I don’t want this tablet. It’s thin. It’s light. It’s sexy. The screen is gorgeous. It packs an 8MP rear shooter. But ultimately, it lacks expandable memory, which is a serious oversight on a flagship product.
The Shortlist
Ruling out the popular three, this leaves the Iconia, XOOM and Transformer. Each brings a unique strength:

• Motorola’s selling point has always been docks and accessories. While the XOOM doesn’t come with anywhere close to how many accessories that Apple products have, the ones that are available are fantastic. The XOOM launched with two available docks, two cases and a silicone sleeve – which works with the docks. As a big downside, the tablet uses a proprietary charger (ugh) and the speaker dock has too many plugs and connectors that have to line up which make it a bit of a pain to simply “drop it in and go”. Worth noting the volume buttons on the tablet, without the silicon sleeve are next to impossible to press.
• Acer’s Iconia packs identical hardware to the XOOM – but is $50 to $100 cheaper. It even comes with a full size USB port directly on the tablet. The overall look and feel for the tablet is, in my opinion, much more elegant. In all honesty, this is probably the tablet I would recommend unless the specific strength of the other two have a calling for you.
• The Transformer’s strength is clearly the laptop-dock which has an integrated battery. I don’t think a tablet should be used as a notebook/netbook (and vice versa) but I can see how it can be handy for travellers etc. I’d personally prefer a Bluetooth keyboard. Pricing for the base tablet falls between the Iconia and the XOOM however, the whole point of this tablet is to buy it with the keyboard dock – which then puts the pricepoint higher than the XOOM.

And then there was one…
For me, with my obsession with docks – which aren’t cheap ($50/$100 for the standard/speaker dock) are a major way I use my tablet/phone so the XOOM is still the obvious choice. The tablet has some pretty noticeable downsides though…

• No out of the box SD card support. I’m not joking, you buy this tablet, you open it out of the box and although it has a microSD card slot, you can’t use it. From what I hear, the latest Honeycomb 3.2 update for the XOOM unlocked the SD card slot, but I don’t know: I’ve been running a custom ROM for a few months now which unlocked the SD card slot.
• This device is heavy. Although to be fair, I don’t know whether to call it “heavy” or “sturdy”. When I first picked it up, I definitely get the feeling that the device is solid (rather than overweight). It weighs as much as the 3G iPad.
• The volume up/down controls are atrocious. I don’t know who in QA needs to be sacked for this: the buttons are simply too small – which means they require a lot of force to trigger. Getting the gel case accessory for this resolves this problem and makes the buttons usable again.
• The use of custom charging connector means that to connect this tablet to a dock requires lining up several pins – two on the standard dock, three on the speaker dock – which means, you can’t just slam it into the dock like you’d want to. Sometimes, there’s some wiggling to get the thing to drop in. The nice thing is that the docks work with the official gel case accessory (so you don’t have to take the tablet in and out of a case to dock it – brilliant!).
• The down side of the docks is that they are “dumb” docks – just power (and in the case of the speaker dock, there is micro-HDMI output as well). There’s no way to connect to a computer via microUSB. Which is a shame because the microUSB port is covered up when the tablet is docked. Pain in the butt really.

That’s about all for the serious grievances I have with this tablet. Were I to buy another tablet now, it would be a serious consideration between the XOOM and the Iconia. While the Iconia has a dock, it’s just a basic dock (the speaker dock for the XOOM is pretty fantastic – and works with the gel case) but the Iconia is hands down cheaper all around. I’d probably lean towards the XOOM again though.