CNET: Why no one lines up for the Motorola Xoom

[4Dandroid]

Please forgive me if this link has been posted previously. I thought the members here might want to weigh in on the discussion.

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[bensode]

It's a flagship device going against an already established product. To say the Xoom's release was underwhelming is entirely accurate. The Apple marketing machine is a behemoth and there is no way that Moto would be able to compete directly against them just yet. They released the Xoom and I bet are waiting for the other Honeycomb competitors. Once the other manufacturers break into the Honeycomb market you will see Moto step up and compete. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

[padholdr]

Another point is that Apple builds the hype around their products. They spend tons of money on how to get people to do anything to have the next product they release, it is all part of their strategy. If Motorola put the money behind the launch of the Xoom as Apple did I'm sure the reaction would have been bigger. I'm assuming the Xoom 2 will have much more hype..

[kris]

IMO .. Simply because silly people think they have status when they can brag that they were able to buy an iPad .. and how loooonng they had to wait. lol The problem is that not even months later Apple announces a new and improved version ..but barely improved! Yeah, they put cameras on the iPad2, but not even up to what is on the Xoom! Last night, I read where Sony is selling 5mp cameras to Apple, but there is a problem ... the sensors are .. were made in Japan .. Oh well ....

I am not particularly fond of long lines. And, my Xoom already has a 5mp camera and things just keep getting better

[feverhost]

No one tablet will ever beat the ipad*... but as a whole Android definitely will and that is all Google cares about. Just like android did on phones.. it wins in quantity.

[toastedmuffin]

No one tablet will ever beat the ipad*... but as a whole Android definitely will and that is all Google cares about. Just like android did on phones.. it wins in quantity.

I am glad you put an "*" in that sentence. I think the Xoom is clearly a better product then the iPad. The Xoom has a better & larger screen, better front and rear cameras, upgradeable to 4G, eventual micro SD expension, easy to tether via Bluetooth to my Droid X (w/o rooting), and more. And while it may not look as "sleek" as an iPad2, it give you all of this for only 125 grams more in weight.

The only real negative for the Xoom (and honestly its a big one) is that iPad had a year headstart in the Apps dept. While that is a turn off to alot of people, as more Android tablets get sold, the numbers will improve. This will definitly look like what happend when the G1 came out to compete against the iPhone. I think in this case however, the app market will be much quicker to catch up.

I was suprised that lots of "reviews" pointed out all the feature differences, but still managed to give the nod to an iPad over the Xoom.

[Lordshadowz]

For me it comes down to this. Thismorning while at work I got a message from Engadget. It stated that Dungeon Defenders: First Wave and First Wave Deluxe are now totally free on the Android Platform. They touted google adding in app purchases and all that. Then they IMMEDIATELY go for the Apple Ipad2 saying but on IOS it costs 99 cents but is the first app ever to use Ipad2's hyperthreading technology and it's the most amazing thing ever. Then in the message they actually show a picture of the Ipad2 running the game and a link to the Itunes store..

All I had to say was WTF ? They start out talking about Google but are so biased they always go to apple.. Why did they NOT talk about the product being offered first and in HD on the Motorola Xoom Tablet ? Why did they not show pictures of it running on the Xoom ? I shot an email off to Endgadget in response and I bet a Warbuck they don't even respond.

No matter what everyone always goes to apple and its total BS.. And pisses me off. I won't ever buy an apple product I swear..

[ffrgtm]

I've read a very interesting story talking about how Google is actually losing heaps of cash and giving everything android related away for practically nothing. It is thought that android is simply a way for google to protect their "castle" (admob and google search) by preventing their competitors from getting between them and their consumers... The best example was when a blackberry came out with default bing search.

All I'm saying is that why you're trying to measure a xoom up against an ipad, just remember that the software on the xoom is nothing more than a clever strategy to protect the google cash cow. What this means is that google doesn't have to make ANY money off of android to keep it going... they realize it's just an "investment" to protect their castle while apple needs to be hyping their products up to make money (which generally come with google as a default search engine anyways).

From an android perspective I'm not totally sure google is that concerned about taking ipad market share over.. they just want to be staked into the ground before the windows tablets come out with bing as the default search engine. It would partially explain why moto didn't exactly hype the crap out of the xoom... because the real competitor won't be out for at least another year. In fact I wouldn't be totally surprised if google didn't tell moto to just hold off and not gouge apple too much (even if they could) until the real enemy comes. An enemy of my enemy is my friend...

Always need to look at the bigger picture....

[Brendan27]

Don't have a Xoom yet but will try it out when it launches here on april 15th, but one major thing that set me back on this was the age/limitations of the Tegra2 chipset. I need to use it for what I want to test it but I was surprised by that. I figured this day in age on this flagship device I could at least put a few 720p rips on it without even thinking of how they are encoded. I am hoping to try vlc on the ipad2 to see if that is any better or worse.

Even with that problem I still think the pro's outweigh the cons for the Xoom.

[Lordshadowz]

brendan,

the Xoom is a Work in progress. I do believe that they said eventually it will do 720p no problem. I know I read it on here somewhere. I know for sure adobe said that with their future flash update that 720 will be activated.