Motorola Xoom and Motorla Atrix: new launch dates for SA

any idea what the price of the xoom will be here in SA? Equivalent of $700?
 
Pavan said:
Great review.
Click to expand...

Well, untill you get to the last page...

"Conclusion

The Xoom's impressive hardware specifications and ambitious feature lineup are intriguing, but the product falls short of its full potential due to a general lack of completeness. It feels like it was rushed to market and delivered to consumers prematurely. The number of headline features that are simply absent at launch is emblematic of the device's deficiencies.

If you will pardon the indulgence, I want to share a marginally relevant personal experience. The Xoom reminds me of a trip I took to Russia a number of years ago. The Russians have meticulously consolidated their nation's vast assortment of historical artifacts and cultural treasures into a single enormous collection, which is housed in a former palace in Saint Petersburg. The facility, which is known as the Hermitage, is easily one of the greatest museums on the planet.

It's an amazing museum, but there is a downside to putting everything of interest in one place. Everywhere else I went in Russia, at virtually every major historical site, the tour guide would have to explain that the items on display were artificial reproductions because the originals were all at the Hermitage. The explanation was repeated with such comical frequency at so many different places that it quickly became an inside joke among my fellow travelers in the tour group. After a week of seeing placeholders of where all of Russia's coolest stuff used to be, we finally got to see the originals (and much more) at the Hermitage.

My experience with the Xoom feels like a similar situation. The product has an extraordinary set of features, but the best are simply not available at launch. While I was testing the device and studying the documentation, I was confronted repeatedly with disclaimers which explained that various features will arrive later in updates. There are so many of these disclaimers that it soon became absurd. The device, in its current state, is like a parade of promising placeholders.

The Xoom's assortment of absent features will likely all be available this Summer, but the launch configuration feels like a beta release. Consumers who buy it today will have to send it back in for a week at some point before they can get the complete product. I think bringing it to market in this condition was a pretty dubious move.

As a reviewer, I'm finding it particularly hard to evaluate the Xoom. When I test beta hardware or software, I tend to give the manufacturer or developer the benefit of the doubt and focus on the product's potential. I'm tempted to approach the Xoom from that perspective, but I just can't rationalize that kind of leniency for a product that has been officially released and is selling for $800.

If you compare the Xoom against the iPad 2 today, there isn't much of a case to be made in favor of the Xoom. If you make the same comparison four or five months from now when the Xoom has all of its features intact, the story is going to look rather different. LTE and Flash are both desirable features that would make the Xoom look really appealing to a decent-sized mainstream audience.

It's worth keeping in mind, however, that the tablet market will be more competitive by the time the Xoom gets all its features. There are a number of Honeycomb-based devices launching in the near future, some of which seem a bit more polished. It's also possible that we will see the second wave of Android 3.x tablets arrive this summer. At that point, the platform will be more mature and the third-party software ecosystem for Android tablets will have had some time to evolve.

I have some confidence in Google's ability to address the stability issues and problems of that nature, but it's not really clear yet if Motorola will be able to roll those improvements out in a timely manner. Motorola's track record on updates is better than some of the hardware makers and it's possible that the lack of customizations will make it easier for the company to keep the Xoom updated. But there are still risks in adopting glitchy software when there are so few guarantees about when fixes will be available.
If you are looking for the best tablet available today, then look no further than Cupertino. If you are an Android enthusiast and you want a good tablet that runs the same software as your phone, you should wait a few months for everything to solidify before you decide which Android tablet you want. Don't jump for the Xoom just because it's the first—they rushed it out prematurely hoping to capitalize on exactly that.

The main legitimate audience for the Xoom today is third-party application developers. If you are a third-party application developer and you need to get your hands on real-world Honeycomb hardware in order to start working on your commercial Android software projects, then the Xoom is really not that bad a value.

Although this review has largely been negative, I want to make it clear that I'm not completely dismissing Android as a tablet platform. The basic elements we are seeing in Honeycomb are compelling, and there is a lot of potential under the hood. Android has a long way to go before it's competitive with iOS on tablets, but it could have a lot to offer when it finally catches up.

The Good:

Built-in software is more tablet-friendly than pre-Honeycomb Android tablets
It will eventually support desirable features like LTE and Flash
Plenty of RAM for multitasking and intensive Web browsing
Dual-core processor and NVIDIA GPU offer great performance for gaming
Good integration with Google's Web services

The Bad:

The software is not particularly stable or robust
Requires a proprietary power adapter and can't charge through microUSB
Users have to rely on the MTP protocol to manage media on the device
The built-in e-mail client has extremely poor protocol support
There are very few third-party Android applications designed for the form factor
The Google Books e-book application doesn't support side-loading content
Very few websites handle the Honeycomb browser's User-Agent string correctly
The browser's support for advanced CSS3 features lags behind Safari's

The Ugly:

The Xoom has to be shipped back to Motorola for the LTE upgrade
Key features like Flash and the microSD slot don't work at launch"
 
Anandtech found the XOOM to be "crashy" - so yeah still some work needed.
 
Would have preferred Motorola to just curl up and die. These look great, but I couldn't bring myself to ever use a Moto again. Absolute rubbish, IMO they're almost beyond redemption. At least a few years of great reviews before I go near one again...

Wish there were other manufactures that were coming out with similar stuff. :(
 
these things are still way too expensive if you think what you can get in desktops or netbooks
 
will Motorola SA honour the warranty if I get a xoom from outside?
 
One day there will be a good android tablet that price the same as the iPad in America. We can only dream for now.
 
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