Being the huge Android advocate I am, it may surprise you that for the last year and a bit, I've been an iPad (suppose I better capitalise it correctly on here) owner. The reason for this is quite simple: when I bought the ipad, the only Android tablet available was the Dell Streak which was in no way comparable to the ipad.
It was actually bought so Lisa could take online payments when she was doing stalls for her business, a task at which it excelled. Don't get me wrong, the iPad isn't a bad piece of kit I'm just not a fan of Apples walled garden policy. For casual users, its fine but for me, it was just too restrictive.
So I have finally taken the dive into the Android tablet market and decided on the Motorola XOOM. Now I am going to pull a lot of iPad/iOS comparisons here due to that being my main frame of reference and me only having experience of five minutes play with a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Asus EEE Pad Transformer.
First the feel and look. Slick is the word I would use to describe it. Due to the extra ports and expansions on the XOOM, it's not as clean looking as an iPad. This, in my opinion, isn't a bad thing. Also, where the iPad feels like it should be used in portrait mode due to the power button/headphone jack being on one of the short sides and the home button then being at the bottom, the XOOM is designed to be used in landscape. Both do, however, rotate the screen so you can use it no matter what way you hold it.
On the front there are no hardware buttons on the XOOM. The usual home/back/menu hardware buttons I have always been used to on Android handsets have been replaced with on screen soft buttons which rotate with the screen so are always where you would expecexpec them. The front does host a small camera for video chat. On the bottom is the micro USB port, micro HDMI and a proprietary charger port. Actually, going on a slight tanget at this point, the charger. WTF Motorola? The charger is basically a laptop charger with a smaller end on it. Seriously, one of the reasons I want a tablet is to have less to carry when going away. A chunky charger like that is not the way to go. Ahem. Back to the tablet. On the left side are the volume buttons which are exactly what you would expect. The top of the device has the Micro SD slot under a cover and the headphone jack, which is situated right in the centre. This is, in all fairness, a major design flaw. If you put the XOOM in a dock to watch a movie or video with headphones, the cable will end up in front of the screen. The back has the main camera, a dual LED flash and the power button. The XOOM feels solid and well made. If I have any complaint about the construction, it would be that the smooth back of the device doesn't give the best grip - a problem with the iPad as well - which should be resolved when I get a case for it. It does feel a bit unbalanced when held in portrait mode due to the widescreen layout, something that the iPad doesn't suffer from.
One of my biggest complaints about the iPad, especially since we had the 16GB version, was the lack of expandable storage. Another thing that we use the iPad for is entertaining our daughter on long journies. By the time we loaded full seasons of Peppa Pig, Ben and Holly, etc on, it didn't leave much space for us. The XOOM's 32GB internal memory is complimented by the addition of a Micro SD slot which is neatly hidden on the top of the device under a pull off cover (if this was the 3G version, the sim card would also live under there). The ability to add and swap storage gives the XOOM flexibility that the iPad just doesn't have in that department. As i mentioned earlier, the XOOM comes equipped with two cameras. The front camera has a resolution of 1.3 megapixel where as the rear camera is 5 megapixel. The webcam, as I call the front camera, does the job for video chat but as you would expect from such a low resolution, snaps aren't great. The rear camera takes decent quality shots but nothing spectacular. To be fair though, its not a device I would really use for even mildly serious photography, even if it had a 10 megapixel camera. For quick snaps to be sent to
Facebook when you have the tablet handy, it's more than adiquate.
The screen is another big difference to the iPad. The 10" capacitive touchscreen has an aspect ratio of 16:9 instead of the iPad's 4:3. Running at a 1280 x 800, the screen can display 720p HD content. The touchscreen is on par with the iPad, I can touch type on it and it keeps up pretty well. The stock keyboard that comes with Honeycomb is not bad (I typed this on it) but could be better. One of the plus sides to Android, as I have touched on previously, is the customizeabiliy. There are several alternative keyboards on the Market including, my favorite, Swiftkey X which has a tablet version. The XOOM has bluetooth which gives you the option of connecting a bluetooth keyboard if you would prefer. Speaking of external peripherals, Android is compatable with bluetooth mice throughout the OS. This gives the XOOM massive flexibility especially in business and art apps.
The screen does suffer from the usual issue of not being great in direct sunlight, an issue most tablets have. Also, as usual, it picks up fingerprints easily so a screen protector or microfibre cloth is essential (and unfortunately, I have neither currently).
I suppose I better move onto the OS. The XOOM is running Android 3.2 Honeycomb. This was the first version of Android to be designed with tablets in mind. Its a huge improvement over the tablets I have seen still running Gingerbread. The UI is on par with the responsiveness of iOS, flicking between the home screens with no real lag. The UI layout, even with the changes, is still distinctively Android. There are five home screens for you to customize as you see fit with the usual assortment of shortcuts and widgets, something iOS still hasn't picked up on. Gone, sadly, is the shade. Notifications now appear at the bottom right of the screen next to the clock. This area also displays the battery and wifi status icons. The bottom left hosts the back, home and multitasking buttons. Multitasking used to be achieved by long pressing the home button. With this no longer a hardware button, multitasking has been given its own button.
At the top right of the home screens is the app button which opens the application dock. This hasn't changed much from previous versions. One flaw here is that in portrait mode, the icons in the dock wont fill down to the bottom of the screen.
Speaking of apps, this is always one of the big iOS vs Android arguments. The iOS app store has more app available on it but the Android Market is catching up. A lot of the iOS apps are now either available on Android or have equivalents. Android also allows you to install apps from locations other than the Market. This option is turned off by default but can be turned on in a few presses. This does, admittedly, leave Android open to the possibility of malicious apps in a way iOS won't be but it is a worthwhile trade off to have more choice. Just always check out the feedback in the Market before installing unless you know the developer is trusted. There aren't many apps designed for the higher resolution of tablet screens but for the most part, the apps have all scaled up fine, in fact the phone apps work far better on android scaling wise compared to the iPad.
The Market on the XOOM borrows heavily from the iOS app store in layout rather than from the phone version of the Market. Upon launch, the top section gives you the apps designed for tablets. Navigation through the market is simple and hassle free. Google checkout is the only payment option but it is quickly setup.
Talking of Google, to get the most out of any android device, a Google account is essential. Once my Googlemail account was added, my mail, calendar, contacts and even my app purchases from my phone were synced to the XOOM. Adding another email was painless and in less than two minutes I had my work exchange email and calendar syncing as well.
Video playback on the XOOM is nice and smooth, even if the stock video player only plays a limited set of formats. Yet again, the market comes to the rescue with plenty of free and paid for apps to replace the stock player.
There was no social networking apps with the XOOM but it was easy enough to download the official Facebook and Twitter apps. There are several unofficial apps available as well but I would recommend sticking to trusted publishers. There is also an official Tweetdeck app with both Facebook and Twitter integration.
As you will most likely know, to connect an iPad to a PC you require iTunes to be installed. My unbridled hate for iTunes isn't really for this post but let's just say that the chance to be free from it was a major deciding factor in changing tablets. Connecting the XOOM to a PC is done via a standard micro USB connector which mounts the internal storage as a drive in my computer that you can drag/drop/copy/past to and from to your hearts content. This makes, in my opinion, adding media, or anything for that matter, to the XOOM easy.
In conclusion, iOS and the iPad are still a far better out of the box experience. For the casual user, I would probably have to recommend the iPad over an Android tablet still. If you are willing to put a little time in though, learn and experement, Android is a far more satisfying OS and you could do far worse than the XOOM.
If I was to give the XOOM a score it would be 4/5. It's just let down by a few silly design decisions.
It was actually bought so Lisa could take online payments when she was doing stalls for her business, a task at which it excelled. Don't get me wrong, the iPad isn't a bad piece of kit I'm just not a fan of Apples walled garden policy. For casual users, its fine but for me, it was just too restrictive.
So I have finally taken the dive into the Android tablet market and decided on the Motorola XOOM. Now I am going to pull a lot of iPad/iOS comparisons here due to that being my main frame of reference and me only having experience of five minutes play with a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Asus EEE Pad Transformer.
First the feel and look. Slick is the word I would use to describe it. Due to the extra ports and expansions on the XOOM, it's not as clean looking as an iPad. This, in my opinion, isn't a bad thing. Also, where the iPad feels like it should be used in portrait mode due to the power button/headphone jack being on one of the short sides and the home button then being at the bottom, the XOOM is designed to be used in landscape. Both do, however, rotate the screen so you can use it no matter what way you hold it.
On the front there are no hardware buttons on the XOOM. The usual home/back/menu hardware buttons I have always been used to on Android handsets have been replaced with on screen soft buttons which rotate with the screen so are always where you would expecexpec them. The front does host a small camera for video chat. On the bottom is the micro USB port, micro HDMI and a proprietary charger port. Actually, going on a slight tanget at this point, the charger. WTF Motorola? The charger is basically a laptop charger with a smaller end on it. Seriously, one of the reasons I want a tablet is to have less to carry when going away. A chunky charger like that is not the way to go. Ahem. Back to the tablet. On the left side are the volume buttons which are exactly what you would expect. The top of the device has the Micro SD slot under a cover and the headphone jack, which is situated right in the centre. This is, in all fairness, a major design flaw. If you put the XOOM in a dock to watch a movie or video with headphones, the cable will end up in front of the screen. The back has the main camera, a dual LED flash and the power button. The XOOM feels solid and well made. If I have any complaint about the construction, it would be that the smooth back of the device doesn't give the best grip - a problem with the iPad as well - which should be resolved when I get a case for it. It does feel a bit unbalanced when held in portrait mode due to the widescreen layout, something that the iPad doesn't suffer from.
One of my biggest complaints about the iPad, especially since we had the 16GB version, was the lack of expandable storage. Another thing that we use the iPad for is entertaining our daughter on long journies. By the time we loaded full seasons of Peppa Pig, Ben and Holly, etc on, it didn't leave much space for us. The XOOM's 32GB internal memory is complimented by the addition of a Micro SD slot which is neatly hidden on the top of the device under a pull off cover (if this was the 3G version, the sim card would also live under there). The ability to add and swap storage gives the XOOM flexibility that the iPad just doesn't have in that department. As i mentioned earlier, the XOOM comes equipped with two cameras. The front camera has a resolution of 1.3 megapixel where as the rear camera is 5 megapixel. The webcam, as I call the front camera, does the job for video chat but as you would expect from such a low resolution, snaps aren't great. The rear camera takes decent quality shots but nothing spectacular. To be fair though, its not a device I would really use for even mildly serious photography, even if it had a 10 megapixel camera. For quick snaps to be sent to
Facebook when you have the tablet handy, it's more than adiquate.
The screen is another big difference to the iPad. The 10" capacitive touchscreen has an aspect ratio of 16:9 instead of the iPad's 4:3. Running at a 1280 x 800, the screen can display 720p HD content. The touchscreen is on par with the iPad, I can touch type on it and it keeps up pretty well. The stock keyboard that comes with Honeycomb is not bad (I typed this on it) but could be better. One of the plus sides to Android, as I have touched on previously, is the customizeabiliy. There are several alternative keyboards on the Market including, my favorite, Swiftkey X which has a tablet version. The XOOM has bluetooth which gives you the option of connecting a bluetooth keyboard if you would prefer. Speaking of external peripherals, Android is compatable with bluetooth mice throughout the OS. This gives the XOOM massive flexibility especially in business and art apps.
The screen does suffer from the usual issue of not being great in direct sunlight, an issue most tablets have. Also, as usual, it picks up fingerprints easily so a screen protector or microfibre cloth is essential (and unfortunately, I have neither currently).
I suppose I better move onto the OS. The XOOM is running Android 3.2 Honeycomb. This was the first version of Android to be designed with tablets in mind. Its a huge improvement over the tablets I have seen still running Gingerbread. The UI is on par with the responsiveness of iOS, flicking between the home screens with no real lag. The UI layout, even with the changes, is still distinctively Android. There are five home screens for you to customize as you see fit with the usual assortment of shortcuts and widgets, something iOS still hasn't picked up on. Gone, sadly, is the shade. Notifications now appear at the bottom right of the screen next to the clock. This area also displays the battery and wifi status icons. The bottom left hosts the back, home and multitasking buttons. Multitasking used to be achieved by long pressing the home button. With this no longer a hardware button, multitasking has been given its own button.
At the top right of the home screens is the app button which opens the application dock. This hasn't changed much from previous versions. One flaw here is that in portrait mode, the icons in the dock wont fill down to the bottom of the screen.
Speaking of apps, this is always one of the big iOS vs Android arguments. The iOS app store has more app available on it but the Android Market is catching up. A lot of the iOS apps are now either available on Android or have equivalents. Android also allows you to install apps from locations other than the Market. This option is turned off by default but can be turned on in a few presses. This does, admittedly, leave Android open to the possibility of malicious apps in a way iOS won't be but it is a worthwhile trade off to have more choice. Just always check out the feedback in the Market before installing unless you know the developer is trusted. There aren't many apps designed for the higher resolution of tablet screens but for the most part, the apps have all scaled up fine, in fact the phone apps work far better on android scaling wise compared to the iPad.
The Market on the XOOM borrows heavily from the iOS app store in layout rather than from the phone version of the Market. Upon launch, the top section gives you the apps designed for tablets. Navigation through the market is simple and hassle free. Google checkout is the only payment option but it is quickly setup.
Talking of Google, to get the most out of any android device, a Google account is essential. Once my Googlemail account was added, my mail, calendar, contacts and even my app purchases from my phone were synced to the XOOM. Adding another email was painless and in less than two minutes I had my work exchange email and calendar syncing as well.
Video playback on the XOOM is nice and smooth, even if the stock video player only plays a limited set of formats. Yet again, the market comes to the rescue with plenty of free and paid for apps to replace the stock player.
There was no social networking apps with the XOOM but it was easy enough to download the official Facebook and Twitter apps. There are several unofficial apps available as well but I would recommend sticking to trusted publishers. There is also an official Tweetdeck app with both Facebook and Twitter integration.
As you will most likely know, to connect an iPad to a PC you require iTunes to be installed. My unbridled hate for iTunes isn't really for this post but let's just say that the chance to be free from it was a major deciding factor in changing tablets. Connecting the XOOM to a PC is done via a standard micro USB connector which mounts the internal storage as a drive in my computer that you can drag/drop/copy/past to and from to your hearts content. This makes, in my opinion, adding media, or anything for that matter, to the XOOM easy.
In conclusion, iOS and the iPad are still a far better out of the box experience. For the casual user, I would probably have to recommend the iPad over an Android tablet still. If you are willing to put a little time in though, learn and experement, Android is a far more satisfying OS and you could do far worse than the XOOM.
If I was to give the XOOM a score it would be 4/5. It's just let down by a few silly design decisions.
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