Considering a Xoom, for the second time...

[psrumors]

Back in March I picked up a Xoom from VZ, kept it less than 24 hours and returned it. I really liked the Xoom but while using it I wanted a keyboard and if I needed a keyboard really couldn't see the reason not to just use my laptop, so I returned it.

Fast forward to today- my 3 year old laptop is having some issues, needs a new LED monitor and the "d" key works most of the time but sometimes doesn't. The laptop has been a combination personal / work laptop. I own it but use it for the company I work for. They are slowly stopping that practice and requiring us all to use company laptops.

My options are;

1) repair / replace my laptop and continue to use it for personal / business up to the point the company forces me to a company owned (locked down) laptop
2) go ahead and give in and let the company buy me a laptop, which is the inevitable, and buy me a Xoom or iPad for personal use

On the personal side my laptop is used for entirely too much web surfing (forums, newspapers, ebay, etc), picture storage / editing (with some video storage / editing), email, a few of spread sheets (bank register) and Google Voice. I don't game with it or watch movies.

If I were to purchase another Xoom it would probably be used WIFI only though I would purchase the 3G version just in case. I would buy a case and BT keyboard and use it as a mini-laptop with the option of just the tablet.

So my questions are these;

What has changed with the Xoom in the last 7 months?
I see the accessories are becoming more abundant, how about the apps?
Can the Xoom do everything my laptop did on the personal side?
The native VPN services in the Droid will not connect to my company's VPN servers, are there any good aftermarket VPN clients? This would be for the few times I needed to just jump into our corp network to check something.

I am heavily leaning towards a tablet and letting the company buy me a laptop as I do have the wife's laptop here for back up in those just incase scenarios.

[Ads]

[rive]

it had an app that builds you an island, then the xoom transforms into a jet and flies you there

[srs244]

plenty to read here on virtually all your "issues". search is your best friend. after you read until your eyes bleed and you are still missing some answers, ask specific questions on the missing pieces.

like you i had a XOOM previously and kept it for approx 1 week and decided it wouldn't do what i wanted it to, so i sold it and got my original price back. then i discovered this site 2 months later referred by a friend, and the learning began. it encouraged me to give it another try and the transformation and the support of those here was fantastic. my personal opinion is that unless you want to root your xoom, you will probably find it lacks the flexibility you would expect as a replacement for a laptop. once rooted, it gains tremendous operational flexibility. can it do everything that a laptop can do, my opinion is that it can't without performing some interesting gyrations in many case. in other cases, you just can't. while i have never used it for photo editing, etc, i would guess (and it is just that, a guess) that if it can do that it would be cumbersome.