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More from Staples regarding this WiFi-only XOOM has rolled in. Previous rumors pegged the Honeycomb tablet for April 4th without a date, but hard evidence has come in suggesting that it’ll be in a week earlier than that – March 27th, to be exact. We’ve even got a price to go along with that date: expect to pay $200 less than what you’d pay to buy the 3G version outright – $600. (And it’s the same price if you were to get the 3G version on contract at Verizon.) It’s not the $400 or $500 that you folks were dreaming for, but it’s better than nothing. We’ll keep this date circled in our calendar, of course, but we’re holding our breath for any possible delays. [via Droid-Life|2]
1 month later $449?
I still cant fathom spending $599 when you can get a decent laptop for even less!
Boggles the mind!
They will sell a few
It might be around the same for a good laptop but this is different. Its portable, lightweight, and pretty dam sexy… can’t wait to get mine!
Can’t wait for the G-Slate!!
Hope Sam’s Club has it the same date, but for that cool $539 price tag. I’d probably still buy it at $600, but that extra $60 would be nice to keep :)
http://gizmodo.com/#!5781376/ipad-2-benchmarks-way-better-than-the-xoom-kills-the-original-ipad
Can’t wait using one at best buy right now and can’t put it down will buy wifi on launch!!!!!!!!
The iPad pretty much nailed the “Magic” price point for this product segment. $499 for a wifi version. Any Android wifi only tablet that costs much more than that price point will not do particularly well regardless of feature set.
Now they have my attention…unfortunately they screwed up the launch of this thing. They had the market cornered and let it slip away. Now I am going to see what the other Android tablets do before I make up my mind.
They will sell a few, they will sell a hell of a lot more than a few. I had iPad 1, I have no interest in iPad2. The XOOM has better processing power, better graphics, you can root it and speed it up, it won’t become irrelevant in a year like the iPad will when they launch the next minimal upgrade to it. Oh and real cameras for real video chat.
Lets see 32GB on board, expansion slot for another 32GB (yeah moto will update it) but with the ipad you only get the memory that is built in, NO EXPANSION.
So another 32GB card is $59 so for $658 I can get a XOOM with 64GB of memory vs an iPad 64GB for $699, so the XOOM is cheaper.
There’s an interesting article on gizmodo right now about the graphics on the xoom vs the iPad 2.
xoom has a faster cpu by 100mhz as it has been revealed that iPad 2 has 900mhz a9, better graphics-no, iPad 2 has better graphics since it has a PowerVR SGX543MP2
youre right it wont become irrelevant in a year but in months since even more android tablets are coming from samsung, toshiba, htc
expansion is not problem as there is cloud storage via apps like dropbox and air video
yes your xoom is cheaper but so is its resale value
I’ll wait for Tegra 3.
Hopefully NVIDIA will put in a beast of a GPU. Kinda sad that the Xoom’s GPU was the fastest for only about 2 weeks.
Tooooooooooooooooo expensive!!!
I’m in at $400. My rock bottom offer.
I am in the market to purchase a Tablet Computer and I really liked the Xoom when I used it a week ago in Best Buy. I was hoping for a WiFi edition that was around 500 dollars, but it looks like I am waiting some more. I really did like the Ipad2 today, but I don’t want to buy into the whole Apple Ecosystem because it feel constraining to me. Thus, I will continue to await a nice Honeycomb Tablet…to see if they can reach that 500 mark.
Can’t wait I’ll be there on day one to buy it!
these android tablets keep on pushing us to get the ipads instead with this ridicules prices.
Too expensive? Nope. This one is juuuuuuuuuuuust right!
Needed to be $499. I don’t give a shit if it is 32GB.
Screw tabs it’s still all about smart phone can’t wait for pyramid XD Amoled plz htc
Jason Harvey I partially agree. Im hoping HTC goes for Super Amoled since the Galaxy S2 will have Super Amoled plus, so they may sell some of their regular SA inventory, but who knows. I disagree in respect to tabs, cause they are fuckin awesome
I wonder if the sd card will be enabled. Also for you guys like me who got the 3g version and didn’t know you have to pay 35 dollars activation fee every time you reactivate a month to month plan. No wonder every one who bought a ipad2 got a att version. Verizon really wants to steal your money. Some people hate verizon so bad that they rather deal with atts crappie network.
Ipad 2 is good at everything, but closed file system and ridiculous itunes syncronisations is not acceptable for me. Jailbreaking not a complete solution, had iphone 4.
@theineffablebob
The SGX 540 is stronger than the Geforce ULP.
So actually the Xoom was outdated even before it came out.
by a half year actually.
How’s staples return policy?
Well im still going to wait it out since out companies are kicking out tablets only thing I rather get xoom over a samsung tab with there history updating OS
A month later and you expect me to buy a product for $100 more than an iPad2 and get sh!tty GPU performance? I’m not an Apple fanboy at all as I have a Droid and would not think of buying an Apple product, but to think that I would pay $599 for a 3x performance DECREASE of GPU performance on a Tegra 2 is beyond me.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4216/apple-ipad-2-gpu-performance-explored-powervr-sgx543mp2-benchmarked
I hate you Motorola for bringing out a product that is mediocre. I hate Nvidia for putting together a sh!tty GPU and I blame Google for not doing enough to optimize Honeycomb and letting hardware crapshoots like Motorola bring out a product that is basically an Alpha product.
I will definitely not buy an Apple product ever, but I’m so disappointed at this MEDIOCRE product that I rather see it burn than throw my money away.
I’be been following the Xoom forever and really want one, but at $600 ill still be waiting to see what everyone else brings to the table. $539 Sam’s price if true may make me purchase it, but I’m really curious about the Toshiba and g-slate tablets.
I wonder if Toshiba still thinks their tablet is superior than the ipad2 after hearing what the ipad2 is packing?
What Bobert said. Laptop still makes much more sense to me.
If you really want to read books and magazines with the thing then get an nook and save yourself several hundred dollars.
I just don’t see a killer app for these things yet.
Mitch,
So a laptop is not portable and light weight? Which btw is the whole reason for laptops in the first place.
I’d rather get a new laptop for this price and wait for android updates for my nook color.
@Fred.
So ur saying a nook color plus a laptop is going to be less than a tablet?
Yes a laptop does have better specs for the price, but it also lacks features that a tablet has. I see tablet far more convienent for me than a laptop. Apps are the biggest feature of of a tablet that laptops for the most part lack.
Being able to click an app and have virtually instant access to content you were looking for is a lot better than using ur laptop and searching or clicking a bookmark.
My PC goes virtually unused ever since I got my d1 and a good tablet would probably eliminate my need for a PC altogether.
Now tablets are not perfect for everyone, but the market for tablets vs laptops is increasing especially as more apps are developed.
Can not wait we have Staples in Canada I guess it be too much to ask for to get it the same date? Maybe I should just shuffle on to Buffalo.
Why do Apple fanboys troll and Android site it is not like they will change my mind and say…… oh you are right the iPad is better. I want a tablet that I can surf every web page with, a tablet where 30% pricing policies will not drive Kobo away.
Patience folks, let’s see if samsung hits the sweet spot!
I see a lot of people trying to justify the price. Say all you want, tablets won’t sell en-mass if they are MORE expensive than the iPad, I don’t care what the specs are. Don’t take my word for it, wait a few months and see.
@Atlas,
You do realize that most of these apps do, in fact, just access the webpage and give you the data from there. Unless your internet is incredibly slow, said app isn’t going to give you the information any faster, unless you are simply terrible at searching for the right keywords.
Bela, can you do math, a Xoom plus a 32Gig SD card is “CHEAPER” than the iPad 2.
A 64Gig WiFi only iPad 2 costs $699
A 32Gig Xoom Plus a 32Gig SD costs $660
A 32Gig Xoom cost $599
and the 32 Gig iPad costs the same.
But buy a Xoom as a bonus you get better hardware, you get a better OS, you get get Flash, you can get any eBook reader you want and not have to worry about Apple’s anti-competitive pricing polices, and you get the Google Tablet which you will be able to get upgrades first.
Bela, last year I owned both and iPhone and iPad but I seen the future and the future is Android.
Yes you can buy a laptop for $600 but so what?
A laptop is heavy, you want to turn on a laptop run an Application you wait, and a most laptops do not have the battery life of a Xoom.
They are two different products
Tech, not that I’m trying to make you buy an iPad2, but click on the link on comment 22 and tell me if GPU performance does not matter to you? If it doesn’t then great go and spend money and throw it down the drain cause this is what you, I and everyone else around here will be doing. Don’t give Nvidia the satisfaction of selling a mediocre product to us tech savvy people. Until Tegra2 can beat an iPad2 in both CPU and GPU performance do not give Motorola the satisfaction of cheating us of our hard earned money.
Can someone please show me a laptop for $599 that includes a GPS, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, barometer, and gyroscope?
You’d be hard pressed to find one with just a GPS, something extremely useful when looking for location based services.
If a tablet isn’t for you then don’t buy it. I’m tired of people trying to tell me a tablet is a waste and just get a laptop with better specs for less money. For me I could do without both, as I currently am, and be perfectly fine with my phone and desktop, but the fact of the matter is I want a new toy and a tablet has more to offer me than a laptop.
Even if I had a Xoom and needed GPS I would use my mytouch 4g or car GPS.
That is a weak argument for a reason to get a tab over a laptop.
@bobert you do realize that the GPS’s sole purpose isn’t just giving you directions?
While yes you can use the argument of using ur phone, but you can also use that argument against buying a laptop.
And lets be real, car GPS systems have been useless since android released their free navigation service. If you have an android phone you do not need a car gps
I honestly think I may have to wait for quad-core tablets after seeing the iPad 2 demolish the Xoom in the graphics department.
Especially since third party devs haven’t had too long to take advantage of Honeycomb and Tegra 2, it might be worthwhile to wait until later this year.
But, I may just have to splurge…
@jamdev12,
If Video performance is THAT important to you then get a good laptop which will blow away the performance of any pad.
To say that video is faster on an iMaxipad just says you are reaching for justification. Are you gonna play 3D games on the thing? No gamer would by a pad for that. That would be crazy.
But, games that are becoming increasingly more awesome (both visually and concept-wise) are nice to have. Not that the Xoom can’t do this or anything, it’s just a shame that the iPad 2 kind of stomped it in terms of that benchmark.
too bad xoom is somewhat expensive… i really wanted it to beat ipad2 :(
@Atlas,
You hit the nail on the head. Pads are really just toys. Laptops are for serious use.
@Zach,
Please point me to one application that will benefit from this supposed awesome video performance you got a boner over on iMaxipad?
Perhaps something running Flash…which does not and never will work on iMaxipad.
Let me educate you. Devices like this are all about compromise. It is not like Apple beat anyone in video. It is that Xoom chose a somewhat less powerful video. The trade off is it runs cooler and uses less power…or they use that extra power capacity for something else like CPU clock cycles. To frame it the way you are means you do not understand technology….which makes you a perfect iTard candidate. You people also seem to enjoy standing in line every 6months to spend money you can’t afford on things you don’t need even though you bought the previous version at a premium price a few months before.
you need a data connection to use google maps navigation on your phone. to say that google maps navigation has made a car gps system useless is the highest of absurdity.
@Fred
Haha, your phrasing keeps making me lawl. But, for your information, I never got hard over the iPad. Like I said, I was just miffed about how Apple could come (haha, boner) into the competition and beat the Xoom in a benchmark just because of their extreme vertical integration.
But honestly, that’s all I’m concerned about. I don’t have ANY specifics. I seriously have no idea if that benchmark will concern me (or anyone) in everyday use.
I cannot figure out why you decided to vent on me as if I was a fanboy. I never said anything about buying apple products.
Zach,
You are going on and on about video performance and yet you cannot produce any example of what benefit this will be? I don’t know what benchmarks you are talking about but for a product like this benchmarks are useless. Show me some application that the Apple will do much better than the Xoom because of video performance. Benchmarks mean almost NOTHING on a somewhat special purpose device like a pad.
I’ve already mentioned the fact that I was merely disappointed about the Xoom’s loss to Apple in that benchmark category. A petty concern at most, I know. But, I didn’t expect it to be such a problem.
Also, like I’ve said before, I am not interested in providing specifics, as I don’t have any.
I’m sorry, I realize I’m buying Android (which I love) but when I can buy a non-contract 3G iPad on Verizon or At&t for only $30 more, I would buy the iPad.
Granted, the only reason I’d buy an iPad would be to use it with apps for my job that are only available on iOS.
Really want a honeycomb tab, but will not get one until Netflix gets on there and app market matures. I am sure it will happen, but until it does it is the biggest weakness for Droid tabs
@Tech
I could not agree more with everything you said, I had a iPhone as well and once I saw the light and went Android I never wanted a iPad cant stand them and there app policies.
Again greatly said “Tech” I could not have said it better
I was hoping the price would drop a little bit. $599 is still too expansive to me.
300k is way to generous estimate. They should consider themselves lucky if they sell 30k, especially in the light of this punch:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4216/apple-ipad-2-gpu-performance-explored-powervr-sgx543mp2-benchmarked/2
I always said I buy the Xoom for 3 reasons.
I can surf the web, the whole web.
I do not have to put up with Apples pricing polices, I want to go to any book store I want to read my ebooks.
I like Android it is better than iOS
Never said a thing about the graphics processor, did not buy my iPad to play games. Do you need a 2 to 7x faster graphics processor for Angry Birds?
I think the Apple fanboys are really stretching it but I care less, ok the bench mark said the iPad 2 was 2 to 7 times faster so what.
I had a iPad for 8months.
1)- I used it for mail.
2)- I used it to read books for Kobo.
3)- I used it to watch movies.
4)- I sometimes played light games such as Angry Birds.
5)- I rarely browsed with it with NO FLASH I found the browser too annoying.
1) and 4) iPad 2 and Xoom is tied, I will not notice a 2 to 7 times faster GPU playing light games, all I play.
2) and 3) the Xoom wins. Reading books Apple is trying to drive all other books stores away. I like to watch movies in the proper aspect ratio on a higher quality screen.
5) Apple does not listen what can anybody say. I know Apple fayboys magically seem to find only websites with no Flash content, me I am not that lucky.
I bet Apple sold more iPad 2’s on day one than Xoom has since it’s been out.
Most likely it has happened during the first hour after the official iPad-2 sales started.
I agree…my iPad 2 is the sweet! Kills my Xoom. It’s going BACK!
Hi Fred,
Video performance is one of the reasons to buy a tablet. If the tablet is unable to handle simple video functions what is the reason for getting one? To read books on it? That’s what a kindle is for. To play Angry Birds? That’s what my 2 year old Droid is for. I’m not saying that a tablet should be able to play Crysis, but for crying out loud NVidia is a maker of graphic cards and for them to get their mobile chip clocked by a Japanese company that the last time put out anything good was when the Dreamcast came out is beyond me. The fact that the Xoom even has problems processing HD video in standard profile is embarrassing. I want nothing else than to have a multitude of Android tablets beat the daylights out of the iMaxiPads as some of you have suggested, but bringing out a product that is just mediocre is not the way to do it and it sets a bad precedent for all other tablets that have Honeycomb on them.
Please read the other few articles and look at the next few videos and tell me if that doesn’t seem like mediocre to you:
Tomshardware on what to love and hate about the Xoom:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Motorola-Xoom-Tablet-Android-Honeycomb-OS-Google,review-1632-6.html
Nvidia’s website on Tegra2’s capability:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-2.html
Here is XBMC developer shooting down the Tegra2 capability of decoding H.264 video:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showpost.php?p=735285&postcount=41
Here is the conversation in XDA Developers forum about the same topic:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=977174
Here is a video link of and Adam vs Xoom playing video and how poorly the Xoom decodes video on hardware:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXWu6m33EP0&feature=player_detailpage#t=231s
If you want to learn more about video H.264 profiles then read this pdf from Polycom:
http://www.polycom.com/global/documents/whitepapers/h264_high_profile_wp.pdf
On software mode the last video played looks horrible and even the sections in Ironman II where there seemed to be a lot of stuff going on the video was choppy.
So yeah do I want to play my Naruto HD videos on a tablet? Hell yeah when I have to travel, but will I be able to play it as smooth as I do on some other device, of course not, cause is not supported on this stupid Nvidia chip.
For those complaining about the iPad 2 beating the Xoom in the graphics department and are saying graphics won’t matter since a game like Angry Birds barely uses anything: How about games like Infinity Blade or Dead Space? Both games look marginally better on my iPad 2 than they did on my iPad 1, and both games look astonishingly great. I’m no Apple fanboy, and I will more than likely be purchasing either a G-Slate or wifi Xoom for Android development purposes, but that Android tablet won’t be replacing my iPad 2 as my personal tablet. I’ve used the Xoom extensively, and I wasn’t impressed. The hardware means nothing when it’s not properly utilized with the software. This is where Apple gets it right, and it’s why there are so many custom versions of Android out there: they’re trying to make the software take advantage of the hardware, and so far I feel like HTC is the only other company really succeeding in this are with Sense. I’m actually excited to see what HTC does with Honeycomb, especially after what they did wight the Flyer. If they bring the same stylus/digitizer technology over to a 10″ Honeycomb tablet, I might be replacing my iPad.