Motorola Xoom: Honeycomb and Limited WiFi for $800

After unveiling its tablet the Xoom at the CES last month, Motorola has been spending heavily to publicize its new product.  The brand's aim is to make its tablet stand out from the rest.  After learning more about it, we think it's fair to say that the strategy has worked ... but not necessarily for the right reasons.

After an earlier teaser, the Xoom, which is the first tablet to run Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) was given a public launch during this weekend's Super Bowl.  The most watched sporting event in the US enjoys 106 million viewers, and the fact that Motorola was willing to pay for a half-time ad (around $3 million for 30 seconds) demonstrates how keen it is for people to notice its new tablet.

Dystopian Future

Although there is no direct allusion to Apple or the iPad, Motorola's ad clearly has a dig at its competitor.  The ad shows an army of identical, immaculately-dressed human automatons, all sporting a pair of white headphones.  But look—here's the Xoom—and it's different.  It's a shame somebody's already thought of the slogan 'Think Different', really ...



Motorola has instead plumped for a much more modest approach, claiming the Xoom is the 'tablet to create a better world,' illustrating the point in its ad where it replaces a traditional letter to send a flirtatious message to a colleague.

$799

That's how Motorola is trying to sell the Xoom, but it has another trick up its sleeve.  To make sure it's all new, all singing all dancing, one of a kind tablet stands out from the rest, the manufacturer has made sure it will have a very special price tag when it goes on sale at Best Buy on 24 February: 799 dollars.


It's not that great guys!  Technical features like the dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, 4G networking and support for Flash all contribute to make it more than the iPad (which costs $830 for 64 GB of memory and 3G plus WiFi), but the price could easily be enough to hold the Xoom back, especially as it won't be the only to enjoy this technical advantage for much longer.

Limited WiFi

We're still not finished though.  The Xoom has yet another original feature: according to the small print in the Best Buy ads published by Engadget, customers have to take up a contract with Verizon just to unlock the Wifi, meaning that, by default, it must be locked.  It seems like such a crazy idea to us that it must be a mistake.

For the moment, there's no news on a launch date for Europe, but the upcoming Mobile World Congress In Barcelona should give the firm a great chance to give us more details.

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