Motorola launches Xoom Android tablet, fails to choose good name

Motorola gave birth to its first Android tablet at the annual CES trade show. Presumably high on painkillers, it then decided to christen it 'Xoom'. 

The Xoom runs Android 3.0 Honeycomb, an upcoming version of Google's mobile operating system. It has a 10.1-inch screen with a 1,280x800-pixel resolution. You can watch 1080p video on the Xoom, but, if you want to see such footage at its full resolution, you'll have to pump it to a Full HD TV using the tablet's HDMI port. 

You can also capture 720p video via the 5-megapixel camera on the Xoom's back, and make video calls using the 2-megapixel camera on the front. Other hardware features include an accelerometer, gyroscope, compass and barometer.

The Xoom runs on a dual-core, 1GHz processor, which will hopefully make for slick performance when watching video or surfing the Web over Wi-Fi or 3G. In the US, the device will receive an upgrade to support LTE on Verizon's network in the second quarter of 2011, which should make Web browsing even speedier. Alas, LTE is a more distant proposition for us Brits.

The Xoom will be available in the US in the first quarter of next year for a currently undisclosed price. UK pricing and availability hasn't been announced yet, but here's hoping the Xoom will have a name you can actually pronounce when it lands on these shores.

Click through our photo gallery and check out the video below to see more of the Xoom. We'll have some hands-on photos for you before you can say "Who decided to call it Xoom?".