Motorola’s award-winning Xoom tablet is now available in Ireland through O2 stores nationwide. The first device on the market to run the Android 3.0, Honeycomb, operating system, the Xoom measures features a 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 T20 dual-core processor and 1Gb of RAM, 32Gb internal storage, front-facing and rear-facing cameras, multi-tasking and a 10.1″, 1200×800 pixel, 16×10 HD multitouch display with HDMI connectivity.
The tablet’s Android features include a customisable homescreen with moveable widgets, notifications and tabbed browsing. A 5MP rear-facing camera, and a 2MP front-facing camera with LED flash enable video chat using Google Talk.
As part of Honeycomb, new Google Mobile services include Google Maps 5.0 (with 3D interaction) and access to more than 200,000 apps from Android Market, including a beta of Adobe Flash Player 10.3, for the delivery of Flash-based Web content including videos, music streaming and casual games.
The Xoom also features a built-in gyroscope, barometer, e-compass, accelerometer and adaptive lighting. It delivers up to 10 hours of video playback and, Motorola claims, charges in half the time of some competitive tablets on the market.
Accessories include a standard dock for watching video content or listening to music through external speakers; a speaker HD dock for sending HD content directly to an HDTV via HDMI or clearly listening to music through two built-in speakers; and a Bluetooth custom keyboard with Android shortcut keys.
Having received a warm reception at this year’s CES, where it won Best in Show, the Xoom was released last February in the US. Despite being technically on a par with (and ni some cases superior to) the iPad and Blackberry PlayBook, it has struggled in the market. Figures from Deutsche Bank released in April put the number of units in the market at 100,000 from an initial manufacturing run of an estimated 800,000.
The European launch is expected to provide a major bump in sales, but the Xoom has still fallen far short of expectations of 700,000 sales and 1 million units on sale by the end of the first quarter in the US alone.
Irish users can make up their own minds at O2 stores nationwide, The Motorola Xoom is now available on bill and prepay from €629.
Niall Kitson
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