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*OFFICIAL* Xoom vs iPad 2 Discussions

I have been wrestling about what to get my wife. iPad 2 has been sold out non stop, the closest apple stores are always sold out when they get shipments within <2 hours with a huge line each time. I def want a tablet so it's between the Xoom and ipad 2. THe big lag with the ipad2 has made me revisit the Xoom now that wifi is about here. I have read these forums and also mac/ipad forums and third party reviews and I am somewhat surprised about a larger majority not really liking the xoom.

My dad has an ipad and i will say it's not that impressive. To me it really is just a huge iphone. My wife has an iphone and she likes it well enough (has had one since 07 or 08) but she uses my EVO all the time and also would want to consider an Android phone in the future given some OS issues for the last Apple update. I think people really underestimate how easy Android is to use. I am not a power user by any stretch and my wife is not some tech heavy person either and the general view from my friends (which indlues my apple fanboy friends) is that Android is "too much" for the avg user while ipad is perfect right out of the box.

To me this is laughable. Again, my wife has now seen how easy things like DoubleTwist are where I can have my itunes from my PC on my EVO. Hitting the market or app brain icon to download some stuff? How hard is that? Having a ton of customization is really cool and it's creative, not tedious. So I really think this is a broader but inaccurate consensus by a lot of people that have no experience with Android.

I was a blackberry guy for years, I got the EVO cause it just was/is awesome. My wife had the iphone so that was my standard cause I can appreciate the iphone capabilities, form factor, and ease of use. I have had very few problems with my Android items and who cares about the occasional crash/force close on some dinky game or whatnot.

So here I am, I think i will get the Xoom wifi for my wife, it's comparable to the ipad 2 if not better. a legit OS for a tablet vs the same OS for a mobile phone? The only somewhat concern is the form factor.

To me Xoom looks awesome, landscape preference seems to make sense, u will sit with the xoom on the couch, hold it like a book. But is it actually "heavy"? the ipad 1 can be tiring on one hand but cause it's portrait it makes you want to hold it w/one hand. In contrast, i think the xoom,ep with the curves on the side and what seems to be dominant landscape orientation, naturally should be held w/two hands?

Any comments on size/weight of xoom? overthinking it on my part i think.
 
I check out the ipad 2 with my wife today. Her first reaction was its nothing special just a big iPhone. The only thing she like was the thinnest.
 
Dizzy99 said:
...
Any comments on size/weight of xoom? overthinking it on my part i think.
Click to expand...


It's noticeably heavy, but so will the iPad be. It's no big deal in your lap or on a table etc. If you actually have to hold it up to use it, then yeah you'll notice just as you would with a large book.

Just takes a bit of getting used to though. Not a big deal. ...
 
The Xoom is not unusually heavy. No one ever complained about the iPad being too heavy and all of a sudden the Xoom is too heavy.

Motorola device are generally a bit heavier because of the build quality. I have a Droid X and any time I pick up an HTC it seems so light.
 
My take on this whole thing is this. I personally am an Apple fan, I have a macbook and an Ipod. Now this is where my Apple fanboy ways end. My sister and best friend both have Ipads, and both have Iphones, as for my friend he ended up getting an Evo and knows both pros and cons of each device, he preferes the Evo, yet sees the positives of the Iphone. As for myself, seeing both of these tablets on the market I felt it was time to get one, so I opted to get the Ipad 2. I had one on order from Apple.com on release day. As I waited for the thing to finally ship it left me to really think if this device is really what I want, so I went to Best Buy and spent about an hour going back and forth from the Xoom to the Ipad. Personally I felt the Xoom fit my preferences better, though the Ipad had a million times over more apps, the Xoom just seemed to work the way I wanted it to, so I canceled my Ipad 2 order and pre-orederd a wifi Xoom. With that being said I look at this whole argument over better hardware and software from each device as a pissing match. If you like one over the other than get it. I really like my Evo and I now really like the Xoom, but I will never get another computer than a Mac. Each have their place in my life and that's what matters. Both devices will be obsolete by years end anyway so enjoy your decision while it's still new.
 
I have been searching fervently for the last couple days, and I can't seem to find the answers to my specific needs in a tablet. I know the tablet won't be able to replace my laptop, but I do expect it to take good chunk of the time I spend on the laptop currently, to the tablet.

So...I have a list of needs/productivity issues that need to be fulfilled by a tablet, and I have narrowed it down to the iPad 2 and the Xoom (I don't really want to wait until Q2 for other Android tablets).

Anyways, here is the list of criteria:

email
facebook
web surfing
Media (easily watch videos whether I rip them from a DVD/BD or download or stream)
Able to download files (i.e. powerpoint presentations) and view them AND edit/take notes on them WITHOUT the need of a pc


The last one is a biggy as I am a student and all my professors post powerpoint presentations online that I need to download. I just hate lugging around my huge laptop to do the things said above.

Again, is it possible for any of the two tablets to download files online, then access them to edit and take notes on without having to connect the tablet to a pc?

Also, I do not care if I have to jailbreak/root to have these done, as I have jailbroken iPhones and rooted androids easily in the past.

Thank you so much for your time to read this post!
 
I'm sure both would accomplish your needs (especially if you are gonna jailbreak the iPad - streaming won't happen otherwise). I do all of the above on my Xoom. I use Documents to Go for the powerpoint viewing/editing and keep them in Dropbox so that I can access them anywhere - Xoom, PC, Mac, Phone.
 
Thanks for the quick response! I do love the hardware of the iPad, but if the Xoom can do everything I need out of the box, then I see no need in getting the iPad. Which is a good thing because I preordered the wifi Xoom lol.

Thanks again, and if anyone else wants to chime in on their experiences with my original post, I would also greatly appreciate it!
 
Competition drives innovation.

Samsung just showed their 8.9 and 10.1 slates at CITA>
They publicly acknowledged they went back to the drawing board after seeing the iPad 2.

From what I can see, they removed the silver bezel on the 10. The dropped to a lower res camera to make the profile smaller. All of these are responses to the iPad. That is great that competition among the companies are driving innovation.
The made them .33 vs .34 inches (iPad2)

Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and new Galaxy Tab 10.1 hands-on: thinner than the iPad 2, dual-core power, TouchWiz 4.0 -- Engadget


And the are pricing them $469, $499 , $569, $599.

I think I found my Android tablet. The Samsungs have DivX built in, they plain baseline profile 3.1 720p h.264 and have the same audio processors as the iPods.
 
mulder_fbi said:
At first I was thinking moto was good to release the xoom ahead of the ipad to sell a few more units. Now I'm thinking Samsung was in a better position. They were able to see what the ipad2 had to offer and was able to make some minor adjustments to compete on price. A starting price of $469 is really great.
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Those aren't minor adjustments. They're re-tooling. They dropped the 8 megapixel camera to 3. Who the hell uses a tablet for photography. They came to the conclusion that specs isn't everything.

They won't release a product for another 3 months after all these changes.
The original 10.1 was suppose to be out this month. They even had the FCC filings.
 
As an iPad 1 owner from release day, I've come to both like and hate it. First, if you are interested in financial investments which means researching stocks and stock charts (or really anything flash intensive) on the internet, no flash=no go. You simply can't do this web browsing/research on the iPad. And lack of flash has popped up many times to be a PITA. Apple....please join the 21st century.

The book reading capabilities are also ultimately a no go for me since it is backlit pixel based and I use the Kindle for that purpose. Which surpasses this format by a wide margin IMO with respect to readability and absence of eye fatigue.

I'm also disappointed by the screen resolution when using the web. Small letters are indiscernable. I might have considered the iPad 2 but the lack of a better screen put the end to those thoughts. It appears the Xoom is better here but I haven't played with it in store enough to conclude that.

As far as the other 'tablet' capabilities of the iPad, I wonder when reading comments on this asset what is meant specifically. Because to me iOS/iPad is mostly an app container/launching system. There is no desktop and the main user interface is a sea of icons. Mostly the interface is provided by the apps themselves. To repeat what others have written, it seems primitive compared to Android.

The one big plus and I mean bigggg plus of the iPad is in the apps themselves. Android has closed the gap and there are many fine apps (though not many tablet apps) but still the iPad stuff is so good.

That said, my next tablet will be an Android. Maybe I've gotten tired of the iPad and it's lack of a real desktop/user interface. As someone who also owns a Droid X (and Droid), iPhone/iPad are way overhyped IMO.

I've played around with Xoom a bit at BB and like what I've seen so far. To me the biggest roadblock will be app catch-up.....from what I've seen I'm sold on the OS.
 
kennychaffin said:
It's noticeably heavy, but so will the iPad be. It's no big deal in your lap or on a table etc. If you actually have to hold it up to use it, then yeah you'll notice just as you would with a large book.

Just takes a bit of getting used to though. Not a big deal. ...
Click to expand...

I dunno. The Xoom feels heavier in hand than the iPad 2. If anything, the iPad 2 wins out in "weight in the hand".

I feel as if I could hold the iPad 2 (Like a book, not on a lap) much longer than the Xoom. However, the iPad 2 doesn't feel like it would break easy either (And, neither does the Xoom).
 
You know what, I have both and while the ipad2 feels lighter on first pickup, the center of gravity is lower on the Xoom when you hold it so I actually am starting to think I like it better...

In portrait, since its shorter, I hold it with one hand under the middle (by the connecting ports) and it feels better holding it that way than holding the ipad2 the same way (two hand holding both are the same really so I compare one hand holding since I do use the tablets with one hand a lot).

Same goes for portrait...anyone else notice this?
 
Wow, probably one of the most biased comparisons I have ever seen....EVER. Absolutely ridiculous comparison. Like one of the comments on the site said, "The xoom can do this, this, this, and THIS. BUT, the iPad is an iPad so it gets a 5.0." This statement totally reflected the comparison. I hate biased opinions and clear fanboyism when it comes to giving out public reviews.

/rant
 
I believe it should have ended in a draw as well, because the iPad and Xoom is directed to two very different audiences. iPad are for people who like simplicity, and directed to all ages (children to the elderly), and it does a very good job at that. The Xoom is directed to the people who like to take control of their devices and like to go beyond boundaries to customize and the usage of utilities other than apps; and the Xoom does a very good job at that as well (especially once Honeycomb matures).
 
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