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Wired's Review of the Motorola Xoom

34 points by ssclafani 16y ago

ugh 16y ago
I like Engadget’s review better: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/23/motorola-xoom-review/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/23/motorola-xoom-review/ Summary: Apple’s March 2 announcement better be good.
- MaxGabriel 16y ago
  "Is the Xoom a real competitor to the iPad? Absolutely. In fact, it outclasses the iPad in many ways. Still, the end user experience isn't nearly where it needs to be, and until Google paints its tablet strategy and software picture more clearly, we'd suggest a wait-and-see approach. Honeycomb and the Xoom are spectacular -- unfortunately they're a spectacular work in progress." Given their closing words, and the high price of the Xoom, I think they wouldn't have as strong words as you
- dusing 16y ago
  They definitely did not say that. "Work in progress"
- dusing 16y ago
  They definitely did not say that. "Work in progress"
blinkingled 16y ago
Feels like it was rushed out - LTE upgrade needs that you send the hardware back to Motorola, the OS seems a bit buggy and there are not many optimized apps available yet. On the other hand the hardware is great, the OS is mostly there and apps will most likely be there before long. The iPad's existence for a year and the looming 2nd gen makes situation worrying for Motorola - if it wasn't for the iPad, these would've been the points that would be ignored.
- czhiddy 16y ago
  If they had waited for an optimized Flash implementation and spent more time fixing the OS bugs, they would have been beaten to market by the iPad 2 by a couple of months - most likely a death sentence at that point. Rushing it out is the smartest option, even if it means bizarre stuff like having a non-functional microSD slot.
  - blinkingled 16y ago
    Yeah, I guess depends on how you look at it. May be iPad 2 is going to be a modest update and Xoom coming in a month later with Flash, SD Card, LTE and all wrinkles ironed out would have still been equally interesting because of the unique features over the iPad 2.
  - mryall 16y ago
    > Rushing it out is the smartest option ... Maybe if they just want to sell to early adopters and technical folks. All the non-techos I know who bought iPads have done so because they see it works pretty much flawlessly and doesn't have all the annoying problems that plague PCs. Motorola can't really expect to sell many devices in the consumer market with serious issues like these. People will just pick the iPad because it's cheaper and works better.
- orangecat 16y ago
  there are not many optimized apps available yet True, but I'd expect unoptimized Android apps to work reasonably well. Android's "fragmentation" is an advantage here: developers have known from day one that they have to support arbitrary resolutions, so apps should scale to a tablet much better than how the iPad pixel-doubles iPhone apps.
rkalla 16y ago
1. Mentioned nothing about battery life or performance. I'll admit performance is possibly a geeky request but for a mobile device going up against the battery-life king, that is annoying. 2. Moto should have started with the WiFi only version first, seen if people were interested and moved up from there... but entering the market at $800 with no appreciable "big win" over the comparable iPad (that is cheaper)? Why would you do that.
- blinkingled 16y ago
  Engadget and Walt Mossberg got around 8 hrs battery life which is quite acceptable.
  - dusing 16y ago
    CrunchGear said 18-20 which really sounds like a typo. Or they think the locked state counts.
    - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
      I don't think it's a typo, just an estimate. They say they used it normally (i.e. not a rigourous benchmark like Anandtech) for 10 hours and had 67% battery left. I guess they just extrapolated from there.
- trezor 16y ago
  2. Moto should have started with the WiFi only version first, seen if people were interested and moved up from there... but entering the market at $800 with no appreciable "big win" over the comparable iPad (that is cheaper)? Why would you do that. Independent of price-point, it does have a few key advantages, especially for people who already have an Android-device or not any Apple equipment: - No need to install iTunes. No iOS. No Apple-bullshit. I know it's not the common way to see things, especially here on HN, but to me that is a significant bonus. I'm not buying anything which requires me to install iTunes ever again. I'm trough with that shit. - No need to rebuy the same apps for another platform. I have an Android-phone, I have invested in apps for that platform. I'd like to have the same apps on my tablet as on my phone, and if possible avoid double billing. An Android-based tablet would fit this need perfectly. So while the price is definitely stretching it, saying it has nothing over the iPad is a matter of perception.
dsuriano 16y ago
I'm curious to see how Flash will effect batter life when the Honeycomb version is released.
- drivebyacct2 16y ago
  Considering, it's optional, the browser lets you load it on demand, and I rarely ever have to use Flash, ever, nowadays... I'm guessing not much.
  - mryall 16y ago
    Hopefully so. It will also depend on how good the OS is at swapping out any running Flash processes in the background. If a website with Flash left open in the background drained your battery quickly without you realising it, it would be quite irritating.
ekidd 16y ago
I had a chance to experiment with a display model tonight, after a week of testing Honeycomb programs with the emulator. It's definitely a slick piece of hardware, and it's very fast. Video looks good. Without a Google account or a network connection, I could only test a few applications. The first-party Google apps looked great. The third-party apps looked promising but immature, though I expect them to improve rapidly. The glass seemed to hold a few more fingerprints than the iPad, or perhaps they're just more noticable against the dark holographic theme of the desktop. As consumer, I'd be drooling over the hardware but holding off for a month or two. As a developer, I'm buying one tomorrow—this is a sweet machine to hack for, and I can live with a few rough edges.
runjake 16y ago
I wish I could make this comment longer, but it's only the high price stopping me. It needs to be cheaper than the market leader, the iPad.
- jokermatt999 16y ago
  Judging by the specs, they went for the "more powerful" route rather than the "cheaper" route. Also, in light of that Slate article (linked elsewhere in the thread) on Apple's control of hardware supply, it might be very difficult to make a cheaper tablet with both a good experience and a decent profit.
  - runjake 16y ago
    The iPad experience is equally or more powerful in the consumer's eye. On the technical front, Apple accomplished performance with code elegance as opposed to throwing hardware at the problem, as the Android team often does. This is due to generally better code & more elegant, tightly-tied-to-hardware frameworks. Android will get there, but Honeycomb ain't.
Synaesthesia 16y ago
Loved the Anandtech review of the Xoom: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4191/motorola-xoom-review-first-honeycomb-tablet-arrives http://www.anandtech.com/show/4191/motorola-xoom-review-firs... He always goes into great detail about display quality, performance and geeky stuff like that. In rendering webpages the Xoom really kicks the iPad's ass. The must be using the latest JavaScript engine from Chrome, together with the dual core CPU, it's amazing how much faster it is. iPad 2 will need some upgraded software and hardware to compete on that front. Altogether a solid device!
JacobAldridge 16y ago
My personal thoughts, which have been mirrored by a few other commenters, are that it will be hard to compete with a higher price and lower quality product (vs the iPad). There was some discussion here recently, and an article on Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2286005/ http://www.slate.com/id/2286005/) that talked about some of the reasons why Apple has managed to keep their costs low, and the fact that they had shifted from the premium end of the market to a mid-range cost point (which is always easier when you largely create the market). Does this mean the Motorola Xoom and others to come will be to Apple what Apple computers were to PCs in the '90s? If that anaology stacks up, there are lessons that can be applied - if you're going to cost more, be better, and be WAY cooler. But Apple itself really only started to grow again when they moved out of that paradigm - the iPod etc defined a market in the way the Mac never did. (That's why they ran Mac v PC ads, but never iPod v ???) Apple learned that competing with a dominant player wasn't going to deliver the business profits and growth that they wanted. Yet Motorola etc are here, in the tablet space, giving it a try.
- seabee 16y ago
  What's interesting in this case, compared to Mac vs. PC, is how the roles have changed - and I don't mean "Apple is on top", either. On the desktop, the OS that ran on commodity hardware was the dominant force, even though there was no 'dominant' hardware supplier. And this made sense, since the desktop is very 'general-purpose'. With tablets, the hardware is inextricably linked to the OS. The experience between different Android tablets is more variable than Windows ever was, as well as being largely dictated by the manufacturers - both by locking down the OS and the lack of hardware customisation. Maybe this will settle down in a few years, but Apple have always been in better control of their experience, so naturally they're far ahead on this one.
ZeroGravitas 16y ago
Speaking as someone who has no intention of buying a tablet right now and probably won't buy a Motorola or 3G enabled one anyway, the reviews all sound pretty good to me. At some point in the future it seems there will be a cheap Android tablet that meets my needs. All the downsides seem trivially fixable, but no-one will be able to fully assess it until after the iPad 2 gets revealed. I'm guessing though that Google have done enough to bring it down to highly subjective hair-splitting about "feel" with only a few clear pros and cons on each side.

34 points by ssclafani 16y ago

ugh 16y ago

I like Engadget’s review better: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/23/motorola-xoom-review/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/23/motorola-xoom-review/ Summary: Apple’s March 2 announcement better be good.

MaxGabriel 16y ago
"Is the Xoom a real competitor to the iPad? Absolutely. In fact, it outclasses the iPad in many ways. Still, the end user experience isn't nearly where it needs to be, and until Google paints its tablet strategy and software picture more clearly, we'd suggest a wait-and-see approach. Honeycomb and the Xoom are spectacular -- unfortunately they're a spectacular work in progress." Given their closing words, and the high price of the Xoom, I think they wouldn't have as strong words as you
dusing 16y ago
They definitely did not say that. "Work in progress"
dusing 16y ago
They definitely did not say that. "Work in progress"

blinkingled 16y ago

Feels like it was rushed out - LTE upgrade needs that you send the hardware back to Motorola, the OS seems a bit buggy and there are not many optimized apps available yet. On the other hand the hardware is great, the OS is mostly there and apps will most likely be there before long. The iPad's existence for a year and the looming 2nd gen makes situation worrying for Motorola - if it wasn't for the iPad, these would've been the points that would be ignored.

czhiddy 16y ago
If they had waited for an optimized Flash implementation and spent more time fixing the OS bugs, they would have been beaten to market by the iPad 2 by a couple of months - most likely a death sentence at that point. Rushing it out is the smartest option, even if it means bizarre stuff like having a non-functional microSD slot.
- blinkingled 16y ago
  Yeah, I guess depends on how you look at it. May be iPad 2 is going to be a modest update and Xoom coming in a month later with Flash, SD Card, LTE and all wrinkles ironed out would have still been equally interesting because of the unique features over the iPad 2.
- mryall 16y ago
  > Rushing it out is the smartest option ... Maybe if they just want to sell to early adopters and technical folks. All the non-techos I know who bought iPads have done so because they see it works pretty much flawlessly and doesn't have all the annoying problems that plague PCs. Motorola can't really expect to sell many devices in the consumer market with serious issues like these. People will just pick the iPad because it's cheaper and works better.
orangecat 16y ago
there are not many optimized apps available yet True, but I'd expect unoptimized Android apps to work reasonably well. Android's "fragmentation" is an advantage here: developers have known from day one that they have to support arbitrary resolutions, so apps should scale to a tablet much better than how the iPad pixel-doubles iPhone apps.

rkalla 16y ago

1. Mentioned nothing about battery life or performance. I'll admit performance is possibly a geeky request but for a mobile device going up against the battery-life king, that is annoying. 2. Moto should have started with the WiFi only version first, seen if people were interested and moved up from there... but entering the market at $800 with no appreciable "big win" over the comparable iPad (that is cheaper)? Why would you do that.

blinkingled 16y ago
Engadget and Walt Mossberg got around 8 hrs battery life which is quite acceptable.
- dusing 16y ago
  CrunchGear said 18-20 which really sounds like a typo. Or they think the locked state counts.
  - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
    I don't think it's a typo, just an estimate. They say they used it normally (i.e. not a rigourous benchmark like Anandtech) for 10 hours and had 67% battery left. I guess they just extrapolated from there.
trezor 16y ago
2. Moto should have started with the WiFi only version first, seen if people were interested and moved up from there... but entering the market at $800 with no appreciable "big win" over the comparable iPad (that is cheaper)? Why would you do that. Independent of price-point, it does have a few key advantages, especially for people who already have an Android-device or not any Apple equipment: - No need to install iTunes. No iOS. No Apple-bullshit. I know it's not the common way to see things, especially here on HN, but to me that is a significant bonus. I'm not buying anything which requires me to install iTunes ever again. I'm trough with that shit. - No need to rebuy the same apps for another platform. I have an Android-phone, I have invested in apps for that platform. I'd like to have the same apps on my tablet as on my phone, and if possible avoid double billing. An Android-based tablet would fit this need perfectly. So while the price is definitely stretching it, saying it has nothing over the iPad is a matter of perception.

dsuriano 16y ago

I'm curious to see how Flash will effect batter life when the Honeycomb version is released.

drivebyacct2 16y ago
Considering, it's optional, the browser lets you load it on demand, and I rarely ever have to use Flash, ever, nowadays... I'm guessing not much.
- mryall 16y ago
  Hopefully so. It will also depend on how good the OS is at swapping out any running Flash processes in the background. If a website with Flash left open in the background drained your battery quickly without you realising it, it would be quite irritating.

ekidd 16y ago

I had a chance to experiment with a display model tonight, after a week of testing Honeycomb programs with the emulator. It's definitely a slick piece of hardware, and it's very fast. Video looks good. Without a Google account or a network connection, I could only test a few applications. The first-party Google apps looked great. The third-party apps looked promising but immature, though I expect them to improve rapidly. The glass seemed to hold a few more fingerprints than the iPad, or perhaps they're just more noticable against the dark holographic theme of the desktop. As consumer, I'd be drooling over the hardware but holding off for a month or two. As a developer, I'm buying one tomorrow—this is a sweet machine to hack for, and I can live with a few rough edges.

runjake 16y ago

I wish I could make this comment longer, but it's only the high price stopping me. It needs to be cheaper than the market leader, the iPad.

jokermatt999 16y ago
Judging by the specs, they went for the "more powerful" route rather than the "cheaper" route. Also, in light of that Slate article (linked elsewhere in the thread) on Apple's control of hardware supply, it might be very difficult to make a cheaper tablet with both a good experience and a decent profit.
- runjake 16y ago
  The iPad experience is equally or more powerful in the consumer's eye. On the technical front, Apple accomplished performance with code elegance as opposed to throwing hardware at the problem, as the Android team often does. This is due to generally better code & more elegant, tightly-tied-to-hardware frameworks. Android will get there, but Honeycomb ain't.

Synaesthesia 16y ago

Loved the Anandtech review of the Xoom: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4191/motorola-xoom-review-first-honeycomb-tablet-arrives http://www.anandtech.com/show/4191/motorola-xoom-review-firs... He always goes into great detail about display quality, performance and geeky stuff like that. In rendering webpages the Xoom really kicks the iPad's ass. The must be using the latest JavaScript engine from Chrome, together with the dual core CPU, it's amazing how much faster it is. iPad 2 will need some upgraded software and hardware to compete on that front. Altogether a solid device!

JacobAldridge 16y ago

My personal thoughts, which have been mirrored by a few other commenters, are that it will be hard to compete with a higher price and lower quality product (vs the iPad). There was some discussion here recently, and an article on Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2286005/ http://www.slate.com/id/2286005/) that talked about some of the reasons why Apple has managed to keep their costs low, and the fact that they had shifted from the premium end of the market to a mid-range cost point (which is always easier when you largely create the market). Does this mean the Motorola Xoom and others to come will be to Apple what Apple computers were to PCs in the '90s? If that anaology stacks up, there are lessons that can be applied - if you're going to cost more, be better, and be WAY cooler. But Apple itself really only started to grow again when they moved out of that paradigm - the iPod etc defined a market in the way the Mac never did. (That's why they ran Mac v PC ads, but never iPod v ???) Apple learned that competing with a dominant player wasn't going to deliver the business profits and growth that they wanted. Yet Motorola etc are here, in the tablet space, giving it a try.

seabee 16y ago
What's interesting in this case, compared to Mac vs. PC, is how the roles have changed - and I don't mean "Apple is on top", either. On the desktop, the OS that ran on commodity hardware was the dominant force, even though there was no 'dominant' hardware supplier. And this made sense, since the desktop is very 'general-purpose'. With tablets, the hardware is inextricably linked to the OS. The experience between different Android tablets is more variable than Windows ever was, as well as being largely dictated by the manufacturers - both by locking down the OS and the lack of hardware customisation. Maybe this will settle down in a few years, but Apple have always been in better control of their experience, so naturally they're far ahead on this one.

ZeroGravitas 16y ago

Speaking as someone who has no intention of buying a tablet right now and probably won't buy a Motorola or 3G enabled one anyway, the reviews all sound pretty good to me. At some point in the future it seems there will be a cheap Android tablet that meets my needs. All the downsides seem trivially fixable, but no-one will be able to fully assess it until after the iPad 2 gets revealed. I'm guessing though that Google have done enough to bring it down to highly subjective hair-splitting about "feel" with only a few clear pros and cons on each side.