Back from a Xoom experience

I'd probably have a Xoom today if it weren't for the washed-out TN screen. Even at a lower resolution, the iPad screen is much nicer to look at.

Honeycomb sure is nice though. Competition will seriously heat up in the tablet space this year.

 

I have no experience with the Xoom. But I am very much looking forward to see how the HP TouchPad is going to turn out this summer. WebOS sure looks nice! And Apple needs to feel some heat. I love competition...

 

I spent about 30 minutes in a Verizon store today, while my wife got some things done with her phone.

Most of that time I spent with the Xoom. Granted, I only had 30 minutes. And I fully expected to like it--I am firmly on the side of supporting good competition within the market. I had considered picking up one for the house and to experiment with the platform.

I HATED it. Which surprised me. It felt cheap. It crashed 6 times in the 30 minutes I used it (asked the VZ guy there and he said the one I was holding had just been put out on display today).

The internet was alright, but crashed twice. it stuck a few times.

The screen was not as good in terms of resolution. Reminded me of a netbook screen. It wasn't as comfortable to look at. It didn't flip between viewing modes reliably, and when it did it showed how awkward it is to use in portrait mode.

The "home", "back" and other buttons did not always respond well. It could take a few hits to get them to respond, and at times led to a crash.

Speaker was pretty good, but when it was playing a song it was very sluggish to switch between portrait and landscape.

So, for my first half hour or so, I wasn't impressed. I am willing to amend my opinions if my experience improves, and I'll definitely be giving it another chance, hopefully for a bit longer than I got this time. But as of right now all of it's energy is potential, not kinetic. And I wouldn't put it in the same league as the iPad in terms of initial user experience.

Just my opinion.

 

I was a HUGE fan of the form of multitasking that the Xoom provides. That's not to say that the iPad has bad multitasking, but the interface that the Xoom has for it is just so nice.

Past that, there's nothing that I prefer about it. Better cameras are cool, but really, what's the point of a nicer back camera? I have a 5mp on my phone, and a 14.2MP DSLR, I don't need a good one on my tablet too.

 

Yeah, the screen was the big thing for me, too. If it had a nice led ips I could learn to live with the beta software for a while. Though I'd wait for the wifi only model.

 

after seeing the iPad2 sales ... Motorola must be ready to puke

 

I've played with a Xoom my friend got recently. While it is very nice, the screen did really suck and I miss the dedicated android buttons at the bottom.

 

Everyone, except the diehard Droid faithful, have said the exact same thing. Makes you wonder what the return rate is on the Xoom?