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Motorola Xoom set for preorders at Best Buy

Motorola's Xoom tablet is now up for preorders at Best Buy. The Xoom is expected to put a dent in Apple's market-share dominance in tablets.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers
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Best Buy is taking preorders for Motorola's Xoom, a tablet that is expected to challenge Apple's dominance of the market.

Motorola's Xoom is priced at $799 with 3G, upgradable to 4G.
Motorola's Xoom is priced at $799 with 3G, upgradable to 4G. Motorola

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 and 1GB of system memory.

The iPad 3G--priced at $729 for a 32GB model--by comparison, has a single-core Apple A4 chip, no cameras, and a 1,024x768 display. The iPad is also not upgradeable to 4G. Of course, all of this could change when the iPad 2 makes an expected appearance. The second-generation iPad is expected to have a dual-core processor, improved graphics silicon, and dual cameras, among other new specs.

One of the most anticipated features of the Xoom is Google's Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) operating system that has specifically been designed for tablets and taps into Nvidia's dual-core Tegra processor to deliver "PC-like performance" and multitasking.

Best Buy also lists a number of accessories for the Xoom such as a dock, a Xoom case, speakers, and a wireless keyboard--all from Motorola.

Update: Verizon now has a live page on the Xoom here. In small print it states, "Adobe Flash expected Spring 2011." And note that Best Buy also has some fine print: a "1 month data activation [is] required" to enable Wi-Fi.

(Via Engadget)

Updated on February 21 at 2:55 p.m. PST: adding sentence about delayed Adobe Flash support notice on Verizon's site and Best Buy's fine print about enabling Wi-Fi.