xoom

The Motorola Xoom tablet is easily the best competition Apple's iPad has ever seen. Sporting a 10.1-inch screen, front and rear cameras, HDMI output, a dual-core processor, and Google's tablet-optimized version of Android, the Xoom is entering the tablet wars with guns blazing.

Priced at $800 off-contract or $600 with a two-year commitment from Verizon, the Xoom isn't out to win frugal customers. Instead, Motorola is taking the approach used with its successful line of Droid smartphones--emphasizing the device's horsepower and the many capabilities not found on its Apple counterpart.

To this end, the Xoom'… Read more

On Thursday, Motorola's long awaited--and CNET's Best of CES 2011 winner--Xoom tablet will be released. At the time of this writing, only a handful of tablets already released are fit to compete with the Xoom in terms of features, usability, and specs.

Those include the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Apple iPad. I've gathered them here with what I feel are their most important specs, which we'll now take a deeper look at. … Read more

Developers looking to create apps for the newest Honeycomb version of Android can now grab the final SDK from Google.

The search giant released the software development kit for Android 3.0 yesterday, offering several new features that developers can incorporate into their mobile apps with the goal of publishing them directly to Google's Android Market. This final version follows the interim one that Google rolled out last month.

Honeycomb is the first Android OS designed specifically to take advantage of tablets and their larger-than-smartphone displays. As such, much of the functionality offered in the SDK can help developers … Read more

Today in hot, fresh, buzzy news, don't panic: Libya can fire guns at protesters from helicopters, but it can't turn off all your bit.ly links. Phew, right? Also, even though the Motorola Xoom might not have Flash the day it comes out of the box, it'll have it within two weeks, so that's also a calm-down story. Plus, Amazon launches its Prime streaming service, Microsoft offers a Kinect SDK, and Apple might give a tiny little window of opportunity to Android tablets. Plus: save Chrome's URL bar! --Molly

Motorola announced today that its Android 3.0 Honeycomb Xoom tablet will be available from Verizon starting February 24 for $599.99 with a two-year service agreement or $799.99 without a contract.

In addition, 3G data plans for the Xoom will run $20 per month for 1GB of data, but there was no word on what Verizon will charge for 4G data plans. Though the tablet will not be 4G capable at launch, Moto and Verizon said the Xoom will be upgraded to work with the carrier's 4G LTE service during Q2 2011 at no additional charge.

Verizon … Read more

Best Buy is taking preorders for Motorola's Xoom, a tablet that is expected to challenge Apple's dominance of the market.

A new entry on Best Buy's site shows the Xoom priced at $799 for a version that is 3G-capable and upgradeable to 4G.

The 10.1-inch tablet is expected to give the iPad a run for its money, just as Motorola's Droid phones have done in the smartphone space. The Xoom will pack a dual-core Nvidia processor, a 1,280x800 resolution display, and dual cameras. Available in stores Thursday, the tablet has a 32GB flash drive … Read more

We sift through the bucket loads of Mobile World Congress news for precious Android nuggets, including hardware news, new form factors, and a few ways to view and edit video content on future Android devices. All of that and the Android guys Justin Eckhouse and Antuan Goodwin have a little too much fun with the Androidify app on this week's edition of Android Atlas Weekly.

Samsung finally gives us an Android PMP worth looking at http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13970_7-20032221-78.html… Read more

Motorola, attempting to expand its brand among European customers, today announced retail partners that will carry its upcoming Android-based Xoom tablet.

Among those partners in the U.K. are The Carphone Warehouse and its ally Best Buy, along with Dixons Retail, with its Currys and PC World chains. In addition, Deutsche Telekom will carry it in "selected markets," Motorola announced at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona.

The Xoom, with a 10.1-inch display, will mark the debut of the upcoming version 3.0 "Honeycomb" edition of Google's Android operating system, which is tailored … Read more

In case you missed it, last weekend Best Buy briefly had Motorola's upcoming Xoom tablet priced at $1,199.99 on its Web site, announcing it would be available for preorder on February 17. Well, as rumors suggested, that price tag was only "placeholder" pricing, and Motorola Mobility's CEO Sanjay Jha today confirmed that the 10.1-inch tablet would sell for an unsubsidized $799 at Verizon Wireless, with a Wi-Fi-only version priced at around $600.

Reuters reported that Jha, who's in Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress trade show, remarked to reporters, "Competing with … Read more