3 ms·
It's barely priced higher than the equivalent iPad model. $729 for the 3G/32GB iPad vs. $799 for the 3G/32GB Xoom. IMHO, Honeycomb is far beyond the current i
by tdfx 16y ago
It's barely priced higher than the equivalent iPad model. $729 for the 3G/32GB iPad vs. $799 for the 3G/32GB Xoom.
IMHO, Honeycomb is far beyond the current iOS iteration for iPad. Granted I'm a Google services oriented person and Apple will most likely be releasing a new version of iOS for the iPad 2 in March, but apples to apples comparison: I've owned both now and I prefer Android. Not for "openness", or because I don't like Apple, but because the functionality is just more intuitive and convenient. Google really did good with Honeycomb. Most specifically is the tabbed browsing (though apps like Google Reader still don't work correctly).
I realize there's no WiFi model at the moment to compete with the iPad's lower end choices but I would imagine that's coming. Obviously there's a serious lack of apps for Android tablets as the Xoom is the first major tablet to be put out. I think these problems will be solved in time and only be a concern to early adopters.
tldr; Android is serious competition for Apple and without some serious innovation they're at serious risk of falling behind. I purposely purchased my Xoom so that the 14-day return window include the March 2nd iPad2 announcement, so I'm definitely not staying with the Xoom if Apple pulls a rabbit out of their hat.
- marknutter 16y agonot having a wifi only version is just boneheaded.
- tdfx 16y agoI can't really imagine why they wouldn't have released one. The only plausible reason I can come up with is that their manufacturing costs couldn't come close what Apple was able to do to put out their $499 16GB WiFi model.
- blinkingled 16y agoFWIW, I totally agree with what you said. Honeycomb is looking really good - to the point where using iOS feels restricted to me. (Bought mine yesterday and not changing it for anything - to me the stock Google ROM and unlockable bootloader have huge potential for development and trying out custom ROMs.)
- tdfx 16y agoAnother big winner for me (on any Android 2.2+ device): tethering via portable WiFi hotspot. Although it's much more satisfying when I run my Nexus One on my AT&T unlimited data plan than when I get molested by Verizon for my data usage on the Xoom 3GB plan. Theoretically this feature will be coming to iOS soon (it's already present in the Verizon iPhone 4 refresh), depending on how badly AT&T decides to continue to gouge their customers.
- mikeklaas 16y agoThe only iPad price point that matter is the $499 wifi version. Seriously. The rest are there to capture some price discrimination value, and that's all.
- protomyth 16y agoThat's the key. A XOOM is $800 and an iPad is $500. It is the old Dell versus Apple thing. The cheapest price unit sticks.