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The never-ending game of tech one-upmanship is squarely focused these days on tablets as a slew of rivals take on Apple's iPad. The latest is Motorola Mobility, the company unleashing a serious contender with its Motorola Xoom tablet that hits stores today.
Xoom is the first slate to run Android 3.0, or Honeycomb, Google's buzzed-about operating system baked up specifically for tablets — it's not a supersized version of Android for smartphones. I've been testing Xoom for a few days and, despite quibbles, believe it belongs in the conversation on most-desirable tablets.
Xoom's pricing stings a bit. You can buy a version with Wi-Fi and 3G for data from Verizon Wireless for $599.99 with a two-year contract. Otherwise it can be had for $799.99 without a plan. It comes with 32GB of internal storage that will eventually be upgradeable by another 32GB via a micro SD memory card. Data plans start at $20 a month.
A Wi-Fi-only version will be offered later at a price yet to be determined. Apple's current price for a Wi-Fi-only iPad with the same 32GB of storage is $599, while a version with Wi-Fi and 3G runs $729. Data plans are not required.
Honeycomb brings customizable screens (if not always intuitive), interactive widgets and several special effects. One allows you to tilt the device while you're in a photo gallery app, causing thumbnails for pictures or videos that were hidden under neat stacks to slide edges out to become visible.
While testing the Google Maps app in Manhattan, I pinched and spread my fingers to zoom in and out on 3-D renderings of surrounding buildings. Pretty cool..........
