Ryan Paul reviewed the Motorola Xoom tablet for Ars Technica yesterday. It is a long article, but well worth the read if you're interested in this stuff. It largely matches my initial impressions when I (very briefly) had the opportunity to play with one.
My experience with the Xoom feels like a similar situation. The product has an extraordinary set of features, but the best are simply not available at launch. While I was testing the device and studying the documentation, I was confronted repeatedly with disclaimers which explained that various features will arrive later in updates. There are so many of these disclaimers that it soon became absurd. The device, in its current state, is like a parade of promising placeholders.
The Xoom's assortment of absent features will likely all be available this Summer, but the launch configuration feels like a beta release. Consumers who buy it today will have to send it back in for a week at some point before they can get the complete product. I think bringing it to market in this condition was a pretty dubious move.
As a reviewer, I'm finding it particularly hard to evaluate the Xoom. When I test beta hardware or software, I tend to give the manufacturer or developer the benefit of the doubt and focus on the product's potential. I'm tempted to approach the Xoom from that perspective, but I just can't rationalize that kind of leniency for a product that has been officially released and is selling for $800.
If you compare the Xoom against the iPad 2 today, there isn't much of a case to be made in favor of the Xoom. If you make the same comparison four or five months from now when the Xoom has all of its features intact, the story is going to look rather different. LTE and Flash are both desirable features that would make the Xoom look really appealing to a decent-sized mainstream audience.
While I'm not a huge fan of the design motif of Honeycomb (the Tron look just seems flashy for the sake of being flashy), I do actually really like some of the features in it. For example, the Home Screen editor is very nice, and is far better than anything on iOS (even if I think that the "widgets" are usually crap, just like the Sidebar Gadgets in Vista). The notifications system isn't perfect, but it is WAY better than iOS (which is absolutely terrible). And, I love the quick-access to the important settings under the clock.
Unfortunately, two areas where I really don't agree with the general sense you get from the review is the web browser and the fit-and-finish of the hardware itself. I really did NOT like the web browser. It feels like a desktop version of chrome stapled onto a mobile device. The tabs-up-top system works great if you have a precise pointing device, but it is fidgety when you are trying to use your finger. I had a lot of trouble closing tabs, and the problem with sites recognizing it as a phone is a
huge problem that Google should have done a lot more to address before launch.
Ryan glossed over the fit-and-finish department a bit, but I really don't think he should have based on my brief experience with the Xoom. Now, I should say, I haven't had a ton of time to play with the Xoom, but I have used two different ones (one from a friend and one at the store), and both exhibited some troubling build quality defects. As mentioned briefly on the recent Engadget Mobile podcast, the very first thing I noticed when using it was that the screen flexes independently of the body of the device when you're using it. The edges of the screen seem to "bounce around" in the case a bit, and pull away from the edges of the back-plastic. And one of the two I used didn't seem perfectly aligned in the case (there were gaps on some sides between the edge of the glass and the rim of the back), though the in-store model didn't have this problem. The look and feel of the screen just seems similar to using the keyboard on a cheap netbook or poorly built laptop. Also, the power button on the in-store display model got stuck in the 10 minutes I was there playing with it. Now, it is certainly possible that someone broke it before I got there, but it isn't like the thing has been sitting there for months being used-and-abused. It is brand-spanking new!
I do totally agree with his comments about reliability, unfortunately, and this is the one place where I really think they made a big mistake. When I picked up my friend's Xoom and tried to use it for the first time, the very first thing it did was lock up when trying to launch the web browser. I had to reboot it. Applications crashed
regularly. Mostly the UI felt extremely fluid and fast (equal-to or faster than my dad's iPad 1), but apps would also occasionally slow down to a crawl for no apparent reason. I've seen similar things on iOS devices, though so I'm willing to forgive this issue (especially since it seemed to happen
mostly with third-party apps). The crashes are not forgivable, though. According to the friend who has one, she just expects to have to reboot it
at least once a day because something flakes out.
I think this is a big problem. It really just gives you a bad first impression of the device, and even if they fix the issues over time (I'm sure lots of the software problems will get better), I worry that they'll just introduce new cruft that won't ever get cleaned up. I'm also skeptical about how long they'll continue to support new software builds on the device, which is a big problem. As a comparison, my dad owned his iPad for almost two full months before he even knew HOW to reboot it, and he will get 4.3 on his device on Friday just like everyone else. If Motorola is still releasing same-day updates (with version parity) for the Xoom tablet this time next year I'll eat my hat.
All-in-all, I'm disappointed. I really hoped that this could be the first tablet and Android device that I'd own personally (once they lowered the price in a few months), but this isn't it. Worse, I'm now very skeptical that Honeycomb is
it, because the worst problems with the device were all software problems, and since it is a "stock Honeycomb" system, you can't blame Motorola and assume Samsung's will be better. I agree with Ryan... Honeycomb gives a glimpse of a possible brighter future. Unfortunately, I really can't trust that if I buy a Honeycomb device now, I'll be able to upgrade to 3.1 and 3.2 and 4.0 releases in the future.
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Topic: Ars Reviews the Motorola Xoom Tablet (Read 1543 times)