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Today’s thee big day, guys: the Motorola XOOM is the first Android tablet to be running Google’s tablet specific version – Honeycomb – and it’s finally available. You can get it from Verizon Wireless contract free for $799.99, or $599.99 on a two-year contract. Best Buy is also taking $800 for it.
Remember that you’ll need to activate at least one month of data service to access WiFi. You can deactivate data after that, but a fee will be administered every time you reactivate.
And if you didn’t know, 4G upgrades will be available in about 3 months’ time. The process is free, though you’ll be without your XOOM for a few days. We posted some details about that process yesterday so be sure to give it a look-see. Here’s Verizon’s official page detailing the process.
For you developers out there or for those who are just curious, a system dump for the Motorola XOOM went out overnight. We haven’t dug into it ourselves, but if you can’t wait for your store to open and you can’t sleep due to excitement, go ahead and download it to see what you can find. Let us know if you do find anything.
If you aren’t willing to cough up that much cash for the thing, try your hand at winning one from Motorola on Twitter. (The limited gold version introduced at the Oscars.) It’ll probably be a long shot that you win, but it doesn’t hurt to try. (And who knows? Lady Luck just might be feeling a bit generous this month.)
Finally, we have forums. Sweet, sweet forums. Those of you who go out and grab the XOOM up this week are going to want to share their thoughts, experiences, and excitement with a community full of excited souls. You can find our Motorola XOOM section at AndroidForums.com right here. Bookmark it because you’ll probably be visiting it a lot.
Any word on when we might be seeing the WiFi only version hit shelves, did I miss that somewhere?
Boycott to drive prices down. Or don’t.
The guys at Engadget did a review and the Market is super buggy at the moment. I think it will need at least a month to start getting some tablet friendly apps.
Htc Flyer #1
Lame. Must have WIFI only!! Don’t wait until iPad 2 gets here next week.
The thing that annoys me about this is the ridiculous cost of the data service. 80 bucks? For real? Smartphone data plans range from around 30 to 50 for unlimited data as far as I know, and they end up having a total monthly fee of around 80 after factoring text and voice.
I’m willing to bet that since the XOOM doesn’t have conventional text/voice plan capabilities, Vzn is going to come up with some stupid excuse as to why the make the data plan so expensive when really it’s so they can make as much money of the XOOM as they do of the Droids, even if it doesn’t have voice/text. LAME!
Problems With Xoom:
1. Carrier tied and to expensive. Although the 20 dollar a month data plan is pretty cost effective not everyone wants to tied down for two years. 800 bucks without a data plan is to much, will not sell very well.
2. Lack of honeycomb optimized apps – The app store it literally void of any apps.
3. Honeycomb still feels beta (buggy) and still requires a learning curve.
4. Still lacks any really multimedia sync support (ala itunes, zune, etc) and now double twist doesn’t count.
Love or hate the IOS interface, the fact is my five year old son can operate my Ipad with no learning curve. This is where Android Tablet are going to have to start to shine ease of use, multimedia support, competitive price point.
Yeah, product seems a but unfinished…particularly for the price. Hopefully they work out the bugs by the time the wifi version is out.
I’ve been waiting for this day for six months — back when there was some thought there would be an Android tablet for the Friday after Thanksgiving.
I went to the Verizon store on 34th Street in Manhattan at 9:30 this morning. First, I couldn’t find the thing. There were two massive, beautiful displays for the Ipad and Iphone, and two separate displays for the Galaxy Tab.
When I found the Xoom, it had no marketing materials or signage around it save for the standard Verizon placards.
I eagerly picked it up, and find that it had no wireless connection. When I asked, two employees got in a fight over whose fault it was. After waiting literally ten minutes for them to figure out — which they never did. Eventually, I told the Verizon employees to forget it, and turned on my free T-Mobile wireless hotspot.
I came away horribly disappointed. The widgets on the screen look like flung on after-thoughts. The keyboard is a major step down after Swype (how do you hold something this heavy and type? I have to go back to Blackberry pecking?) I could barely see books and movies because the glare was so severe on the screen. The market selection of apps was a joke, and when I tried to download Angry Birds, I couldn’t figure out the process, though I’ve been downloading from the Android market for 18 months. These are only a few complaints — I can sum it up by saying this felt like a prototype.
I wanted to like this so much. But I would be kidding myself if I didn’t say it is a major, major fail of software design, marketing and pricing. It’s just simply not ready for launch.
David in NYC
(commented also submitted at AndroidCentral — I’m hoping Motorola or Google reads one of these excellent blogs)
@Rob Schoenfeld, cellular 3G data is almost always carrier tied. Different carriers use different bands and devices don’t read all the data bands. It’s kind of hard to have Honeycomb optimized apps when it’s the first honeycomb device. The price of being at the front of the line. You can wait until apps are available, but then you’re a year or so behind the curve. iOS is simple, yes. And it’s also a lot less functional. If simplicity is all that matters, we should go back to stone tools. They were really simple.
I can’t believe that I, who would _never_ get an iPhone, still would rather buy an iPad over one of these. The price is terrible. $600, on-contract? Why the hell would I want to buy that, in lieu of an iPad?
And I don’t even like Apple.
An hour after opening at local(Jax) BB, I was the first to even look at the Zoom-was hard to find in store and was told someone would be setting it up later and would then be network accessable. Too large for me-will stick with Galaxy tab for now-maybe the rumored 8.9″ is the ideal size, although probably not pocketable.