Inside Motorola's Xoom: Plenty of horsepower (AP)

Thursday, February 24, 2011 8:01 PM

SEATTLE – Motorola's newborn Xoom paper machine has sufficiency power under the hood to contest Apple Inc.'s iPad, according to analysis by mart researchers IHS iSuppli, but buyers might be disappointed to encounter that it module requirement newborn element to impact on new, high-speed networks.

The Xoom is seen as the prototypal actual rivalry for the iPad — or at small for the prototypal procreation of Apple's wildly popular device, which launched a year ago. Other gadget makers hit proven to mimic Apple's success with the keyboardless, touch-screen computer, but the iPad relic the nascent market's country leader, and Apple is expected to unveil the second-generation iPad incoming week.

Motorola's Xoom, which went on understanding Thursday, haw hit the prizewinning effort yet at winning a swing of the paper business from Apple. Motorola's paper has a 10.1-inch screen, slightly super than the iPad's, and dual cameras for recording chatting and recording high-definition video.

The example iPad didn't become with a camera, though the second procreation is rumored to also hit face and backwards cameras. The Xoom is the prototypal paper running a newborn edition of Google Inc.'s Android code fashioned specifically for tablets, kinda than early versions that were meant to impact on such smaller sharp phones.

While Apple's iPad costs $499 to $829, depending on storage expanse and Internet configuration, the Xoom comes in digit model with digit toll — $800, or $600 with a two-year lessen with Verizon Wireless.

When IHS iSuppli opened up the Xoom, it spotted two components that should attain for a fast device. One is a dual-core processor from Nvidia, which controls how fast the gadget runs its software. In theory at least, this should be most twice as fast as Apple's possess chip.

The Xoom also packs more of the identify of memory that helps applications run faster.

"On paper, Motorola's Xoom should be running laps around the iPad," said iSuppli shrink histrion Lam said. In practice, however, he said it also depends on how well Google's code takes plus of the coercive hardware.

Motorola appears to hit skimped a bit on the quality of the display, at small compared with what Apple was selection to spend. Lam said the Xoom has a more restricted range of colors. The iPad module also do a better job of display grouping what's on the concealment modify if they're not hunting at the figure head-on, whereas on the Xoom, the image module materialize to fade discover when the paper is held at an angle.

The parts of the Xoom that curb how touch-sensitive the concealment is, however, are on par with what's inside the iPad, Lam said.

In cost of shelling life, the iPad, which runs for most 10 hours, haw still hit an edge, though this, too, depends on code and another factors. The iPad has two batteries that are each twice as bounteous as the azygos shelling in the Xoom, Lam said.

One of the Xoom's distinguishing features is that the paper crapper be upgraded in the forthcoming to impact on Verizon's fast newborn "4G," or fourth-generation, network, which is expected to be acquirable in nearly 40 cities by the end of this year. Lam said he was surprised to encounter discover that Motorola didn't build the needed 4G radios into the Xoom — instead, grouping module requirement to assistance over their paper for a element upgrade.

In constituent to GPS, an accelerometer, a gyroscope and another sensors also found in Apple's newer gadgets, the Xoom has a built-in atmospheric push monitor that Lam thinks could be utilised to support grouping navigate super indoor spaces, because that could support figure discover whether the individual is on the prototypal floor or the fifth, for example.

"What happened here is a amend storm. Google came up with Android 3.0," Lam said, "and Motorola seized the moment to become up with high-end hardware."


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