Motorola Xoom Review: The First Android Honeycomb Tablet Is Expensive, But Is It Worth It?

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There’s been a lot of talk about the Motorola Xoom lately. The 10-inch widescreen tablet is the first to carry the tablet-ready Android 3.0 and the rest of its technical specs read like a wish list, but more recently, its high price has drawn attention and headlines to the device. So, after spending some time with the device, is the Motorola Xoom worth the high price that it’ll cost you?

The first thing you’ll notice when you pick up the Motorola Xoom is its weight. The 10-inch widescreen tablet definitely carries a weight to it, more so than the iPad or the Samsung Galaxy Tab. It has a matte aluminum finish on the back, which feels extremely solid and well-constructed. It carries the same “feel” as Motorola’s Droid devices for Verizon – meaning it carries sort of a manly metallic feel to it.

The screen on the Xoom is amazing. While it isn’t anything notable like OLED or a retina display, it certainly looks like a higher-grade LCD screen than most other gadgets, these days. Recent iSuppli analyst teardowns have reported that the screen and touchscreen cost $140 on the Xoom and make up the most expensive part of the device – and that’s easy to believe.

Another reason the Xoom is so expensive is that it’s powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 system-on-a-chip technology. For the most part, the Xoom is a powerful device. Moving between the home screens is quick, and responsive, and most apps (even ones with 3D) run perfectly fine. However, some apps do not run as well on the 10-inch screen. Namely, Angry Birds, and other games that are constantly up scaling art assets to the 10-inch screen seem to be laggy from time to time. However, some other games, like Virtual Table Tennis 3D, seem to run perfectly when pushed out to 10-inches. It seems to be a case-by-case basis as to which apps have trouble running on the big screen.

Speaking of software, let’s talk about the software on the Motorola Xoom. As mentioned, this is the first tablet to ship with Google’s Android 3.0, which they have promised is the first version of the popular mobile OS that’s optimized for tablets. And boy, is it ever. If you are familiar with the Samsung Galaxy Tab or any of the more “bargain basement” Android tablets (the ones from ViewSonic, Archos namely) that just shoehorned earlier versions of Android onto a tablet format, you’re in for a surprise.

If you think the Android UI is “ugly” prepare to get your mind blown as the Honeycomb UI may be the best looking software interface on any operating system anywhere – yes, even better looking than iOS and Mac OS X. In combination with the aforementioned great screen on the Xoom, you’ll feel like you’re using something from Star Trek with the sleek futuristic lines of the Honeycomb UI. Yet, it remains simple and doesn’t seem to overwhelm you. But, the UI is different from the Android phone UI and regular Android users will need a few days adjustment to find where everything is on the new tablet UI. It’ll be a case of you know how to do whatever you want to do, but it just will take you awhile to figure out how to do it on the new user interface.

Unfortunately, as I alluded to earlier, some Android apps do not convert well to the 10-inch screen size. Just like iPad users had trouble with using the 3.5-inch iPhone apps on the iPad’s 10-inch screen, you’ll find that some of your favorite Android apps, like Angry Birds and Game Dev Story, will be pixelated and laggy on the 10-inch screen. I’ve used two 7-inch Android tablets (the Samsung Galaxy Tab and Archos 70), and found that both of them could easily run Android phone apps. Just like the iPad, it seems that these phone apps just don’t hold up when stretched those extra 3-inches or so.

Apps that are mostly text do transfer well to the larger screen size. The Kindle app was great in 10-inches, and the Google Reader app was fine as well. Other tablet apps for Android, like Pulse and USA Today are great in 10-inches. Just like we saw with the iPad, when an app is specially written for the large screen, it can really look good. Right now, there isn’t a large selection of Android tablet-only applications, but that’ll change as more developers get their hands on the SDK.

There were a few blackspots on the Xoom’s software, though. The Honeycomb software did seem to have some trouble syncing to my Google accounts. It would be unable to sync to my Gmail and Google Reader accounts, and then would tell me that “sync failed”. It happened more times than not, it seemed, and has not happened to me on any other Android devices, leaving me to suspect that it was something to do with the Honeycomb software. The

As for the camera, the Motorola Xoom features two cameras.  It’s got a 5MP back-facing camera and 2MP front-facing camera. Yours truly isn’t a fan of cameras on tablets – as the tablets generally are cumbersome to hold up and position like a camera and the Xoom is no different. It’s odd to swing around a 10-inch tablet around like it was a tiny Sony point-and-shoot camera.

Yet, many folks like the option to shoot pictures from their tablet, and at that, the Xoom does it. Image quality is okay enough (see sample pictures below), but like seemingly all cameras on Motorola devices, the image quality is just a touch lower than you’d hope. Don’t expect the Xoom to replace your Canon DSLR anytime soon.

As for movie editing, it is capable of recording in 720p. We’ve seen picture and video editing on mobile devices become increasingly more popular recently, and it even has been supported by giants like Apple and Nokia. In that regard, the Xoom does come with a Movie Editor app.  That app won’t replace Final Cut Pro on any pro movie editor’s workflow, but as far as mobile editing apps go, it’s more than adequate.

Finally, to the value proposition. The Xoom is not cheap. The device will cost you $800 without a contract from Verizon and $600 with a contract, although WiFi-free devices are said to becoming soon at considerably cheaper cost. Apple fanboys will tell you that the Xoom is too expensive, and Steve Jobs himself even poked fun of the Xoom’s price during the recent iPad 2 unveil.

The thing to remember, however, is that while at $600 the Xoom is considerably more expensive than the starting 16GB WiFi-only iPad/iPad 2 at $499 – the Xoom has 3G connectivity and also has 32GB of memory. The similarly configured iPad 2 3G with 32GB of memory is going for $729, much more closer than the Xoom’s $800 (contract-free).

So, is the Xoom worth the extra money you’ll pay over the iPad, or the other Android tablets. Yes, I’d have to say it does. The screen is amazing, it’s worth noting that it’s a higher resolution and better quality screen than the iPad/iPad 2 and is in a widescreen format, compared to the iPad’s boring 4:3 ratio. Without having compared their performance head-to-head, I’d bet money that the Xoom, powered by the NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor and graphics solution, could beat the Samsung-manufactured Apple A4 and A5 processors in the iPad.

If you’re an Android fanatic or looking for the best tablet out there, I’d say the Xoom is worth the money. There are cheaper alternatives, although you’d be giving up the Honeycomb software, solid construction and performance of this tablet.

Steve Jobs, head of Apple, likes to talk about us being in the “post-PC” era. He compared the PC to a “truck” and said that tablets are a “car”. The point was that some people need trucks for work, but most people will want a car. Well, if the iPad and iPad 2 are fine Mercedes full-size sedans with style and prestige – then the Motorola Xoom is a supercharged V8 Corvette ZR1, disgustingly cool with power under the hood. It’s got a geeky sci-fi user interface that’s cool and easy to use on that amazing big screen. It’s also got unbelievable performance that, I feel, is unmatched by any other tablet today.

The cons aside, I believe that Honeycomb is a suitable operating system for tablets, and I look forward to more devices shipping with it. For now, if you’re willing to stomach the cost, the Xoom is a more than capable way to jump on the Honeycomb band wagon.

(Disclaimer: We were provided a Motorola Xoom loaner by Verizon to use during the review period).