by Eric Pettifor
Okay, I’m starting to want a tablet. No, not the iPad for which I expressed my underwhelmedness back in February of 2010, but the Motorola Xoom to be released this quarter, perhaps even as soon as next month.
What’s so great about the Xoom? Well, if you’re one of those who have been waiting for Apple to add all the features they omitted, like camera, usb support, multitasking, SD card support, and so on, your wait may soon be over, at least if you’re prepared to venture outside the Apple fold. The Motorola Xoom will be everything the iPad ought to have been at its inception.
Check out this vid, and note when the Motorola spokesperson refers to it as a tablet PC.
If one had to summarize the difference between the iPad and this, one could simply say that the iPad is an internet appliance whereas the Xoom is a tablet PC. This may change as Apple is forced to compete on features. A mockup of the iPad 2 was displayed by a CES exhibitor for a time until it garnered too much attention and Apple quashed it. While a mockup can’t be regarded as final or definitive, it suggests that it will sport a camera as well.
What its final configuration will be is uncertain, but it does seem likely that Apple will have to add features, a camera being only one of them, if it wants to remain competitive in this space.
The Motorola Xoom runs the Android Honeycomb operating system, which is the latest version of Google’s Android OS originally designed for phones, but retooled by Google specifically for tablets. Boasting an Nvidia Tegra 2 1GHz dual-core processor with a gigabyte of RAM and 32 GB of storage (expandable with SD), it packs enough punch in a well-designed package running a skookum OS that it won CNET’s best of the CES show this year. They note “We believe the Xoom is the most potentially disruptive technology among the nominees; it’s a true competitor for the iPad and will be one of the first 4G-compatible tablets to hit the market.”
I don’t need a tablet. I’m typing this on my faithful Acer Aspire One netbook. It’s fine, really it is, all I need in a light, portable computer. I don’t need a tablet. I don’t need a tablet. I have a feeling I will be repeating this a lot. Just because the Xoom looks cool, sleek, sexy, and doesn’t allow its form to interfere much with its function as a PC (I could always get a Motorola bluetooth keyboard), that doesn’t mean that I need it.
I don’t need a tablet. I don’t need a tablet. I don’t need a tablet.
