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Hands-on Face-off: IPad 2 V Motorola Xoom
GMGruman writes "Is the iPad 2 all that it's cracked up to be? Or does the first Honeycomb Android tablet, the Xoom, still hold up? I spent an intense weekend comparing the two tablets, detailing in this review how each performs in a battery of tests."
The Xoom has features that the iPad doesn't. The iPad's UI is smoother than the inaugural Android 3 (Honeycomb) release. We needed 7 pages to tell us that??
http://www.infoworld.com/print/153837
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4216/apple-ipad-2-gpu-performance-explored-powervr-sgx543mp2-benchmarked
and their review helps as well http://www.anandtech.com/show/4215/apple-ipad-2-benchmarked-dualcore-cortex-a9-powervr-sgx-543mp2
The key items to take away from both are, yeah the cameras suck but this is truly a real upgrade from the iPad. Performance alone puts is ahead of the older model as well as many available tablets. They did find out that the dual core processor is actually running at only 900mhz. While the Xoom pushes more pixels because of its 1280x800 versus 1078x768 the iPad2 pulls far ahead of it, beyond what the pixel count would account for. As for gaming, some games are already taking advantage of the new power, Infinity Blade has been updated and looks fantastic. This brings up the issue, will there be apps sold that are marked iPad2 required?
Better yet, its cheaper than its nearest competition. The only question is, how long before really good Android tablets come along?
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Am I the only one that just don't care about tablets? Ok, it's a cool piece of tecnology, but why all that hype around it?
Everything was calm before iPad1, now everybody needs one plus every company urges to build their own.
Am I eval()? - http://www.monst3r.com.br
I stopped reading at the bottom of page 1, where there was a comparison chart detailing that both tablets scored pretty much the same on all the tests, with a slight edge for the iPad in one of the tests.
Really, why bother reading beyond the point that the Xoom scores average 8.0 and the iPad scores average 8.4?
Putting moderation advice in your
"Does it blend - Deathmatch" sounds more amusing to me :D
Am I eval()? - http://www.monst3r.com.br
Love Apple, hate them or something in between: nobody is going to beat the iPad, no matter how great a device they build, until they are able to build a competing "ecosystem" like Apple has done with the iTMS/AppStore. Nerds care about the specifications, but nerds aren't the target market anymore; everyone else is. And everyone else is more interested in what you can *do* with the damn thing.
The CB App. What's your 20?
As an owner of an android phone (Droid), I was keen on buying an android based tablet but eventually bit the bullet and purchased an iPad for $350 (refurb from apple) as I was sure that I wouldn't find a good android tablet at that price point anytime soon. As much as I've wanted to like the iPad (and I do like a lot of things including the amazing IPS LCD screen), I was amazed to learn that Apple has chosen not to have a native filesystem on its products. Making things worse - each App runs in its own sandbox with no ability to access files in another apps filesystem.
This has been a massive disappointment for me. I primarily bought the iPad for reading and organizing a lot of academic publications and texts, so that I could always have my library of papers and textbooks available to me. Right now, I have all my PDFs imported into iAnnotate (a PDF reading/editing app), but none of the other PDF reading/editing apps such as GoodReader or Papers (similar to Mendeley) can access these PDFs. I can only "open" a file from within iAnnotate in another app, but this is fundamentally useless as it doesn't even share the same physical file, but instead, creates a copy that is moved into the other apps sandbox. Any changes made to the file in the other app, do not reflect back in the original copy in iAnnotate.
This alone has rendered the iPad pretty useless to me. Using Dropbox to sync files in different apps helps to some extent, but is still really stupid because a) I am unnecessarily using bandwidth I shouldn't need to use just to share the same file library between different apps & b) I now have 2 complete duplicates of my library stored locally on my ipad for the 2 apps I am using.
This is a complete mess and I can't begin to understand why universities and schools would spend tons of money buying iPads for kids when it can't even handle having a common filesystem - allowing different apps to access their documents. All the other Apple decisions I can understand (closed system, etc), but not having a filesystem? How are you even supposed to consider it for serious use without one? I don't give a fuck if it is dual core or quad core. If I can't even share files across different applications on my iPad, it has very little value to me.
Considering that Apple hasn't attempted to remedy the situation so far, I have very little hope that things will improve. I guess I'll just wait another year or so for Android to get a bit more polished and then buy an Android tablet. I find it funny that Steve Jobs kept reiterating that the iPad2 isn't a "toy", and yet, it seems most suited to run single apps at a time without any ability to share your documents and files amongst applications on the iPad2.
He said "tablet specific". It makes a really big difference. Using a tablet with a software interface designed for a phone is marginal at best.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
I'm still not sure who would buy an Android tablet. Buying one is like buying a TV that gets only 3 channels. Why purchase a tablet hoping that the app inventory will grow when you can get a state-of-the-art iPad with 65,000 apps?
Well, I'm not buying an Android tablet just yet, because they're too expensive -- and so are iPads. When there's a reasonably specced multitouch Android tablet for around $300, I'll snap it up, and be happy with the web brower, Tweetdeck and the Google suite of apps (GMail, Maps, Earth etc.). Anything else is an added bonus.
I predict those kind of prices within the next 12 months.
Perhaps, but they're just not optimized for the larger screen. With such a large disparity in screen resolution, that makes a difference. An exxample would be a piano keyboard app - on the phone, you get an octave, on a tablet you get two (or perhaps two octaves and a third). That makes a big difference in usability. That's just a simple example, but there are no free tablet piano apps on Android (at least not that I could find three weeks ago). Android will catch up eventually, but it'll take another year to get all the "good" apps to tablet resolution.
I waited to see what Apple would do with the iPad2, and I'm not impressed. I'll probably try to pick up a low end / refurb'd ipad 1 and wait out the year to see what's next...
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Well, there'll be an iPad 4 next year, so might as well wait for that. Or, maybe even the iPad 5.
When they use a monopoly position in one market as leverage to gain a monopoly in another. Having one monopoly isn't in any way illegal. Abusing it to gain another is. And Apple don't even have one monopoly or overwhelmingly dominant position yet. Don't like the iPhone? Plenty of other phones out there. Same with iPad, iPod, Mac, etc.
I used to use the Compaq TC1000 as a tablet for business and pleasure. But I have never been able to get to grips with the iPad: I find handwriting more useful than fingerpainting, there's a lack of hardware expandability, and it just doesn't have the software base of Windows. Can people tell me what experiences they've had using an iPad in a commercial environment for getting work done? Thanks.
First, you have to understand that the new generation of tablets are not replacements for PCs. They're not made for running Windows desktop apps; Windows tablets like the Compaq were a huge flop in the market.
Tablets are useful whenever the user will be moving around, or in meetings or group activities where the lid of a laptop would be a barrier to interaction. Especially a scenario in which users will be passing the tablet around from one to another. Tablets are better at replacing paper or books than they are at replacing PCs.
Software wise, you'd mostly be looking at web sites ("web apps"), document viewers, or media playback situations.
Some concrete examples:
- Focus groups with interactive questionnaires
- Self-paced presentations (as opposed to speaker-driven PowerPoints)
- Architects or designers showing CAD renderings
Slashdotters will point out that a regular PC could do all of that. But many ordinary folks are subconsciously inhibited by seeing something on a regular PC. Tablets seem more approachable. Handing someone something and saying "take this and look it over" has a very different effect than sitting them down and saying, "let me show this to you."
One other thought. Why the hell can't Thunderbird work with exchange properly if everyone else can?
Both Apple and Google license ActiveSync from MS.
It just doesn't have the software base of Windows
I strongly disagree. The iPad has a huge range of software now, enough so that if you want productivity or content creation apps for just about anything, the iPad almost has an edge over the desktop (where competition is weakened by huge players like Photoshop and Office).
If you are talking about tablets specifically, then the iPad really has a huge lead over any Windows tablet past or present.
There are even a number of apps geared to writing with a stylus, if that is your thing. Or you could just get a compact Bluetooth keyboard if you find you can't type quickly on screen (I find I can touch type pretty quickly with it sitting on my lap or a table).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No, Xoom does NOT have Flash. That is something that might come "later." No, Xoom does not take memory cards as the slot is, as of now, a non-working dummy slot. No, Xoom can not play Hulu or Netflix because the hardware doesn't support it yet. Just how many YouTube videos can you watch?
I can't figure out why it took seven pages to declare what every other review Xoom has said: Xoom is an $800 buggy beta product not yet ready for prime time. Love them or hate them, the iPad is another iPod: Apple caught everyone off guard and all the competitors will be nothing more than Zune-like also-rans. But hey, at least Zune worked well, unlike the sad and embarrassing Xoom.
The Xoom tablet displays mail as black text on a white background (as does the iPad 2), not as white text on a black background in the manner of Android smartphones. Thus, the messages are much more readable.
Uh, my phone displays black text on white background; this of course makes text much less readable than white text on black background like most high-contrast settings for visually-impaired users provide.
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Come on, you don't remember the UMPC? That had a huge wave of hype around it. You just don't remember it because of how quickly it tanked.
At various times Microsoft also heavily promoted Windows on tablets and there were a lot of stories etc.
What there wasn't ever really, was a lot of consumer interest. So in fact you are about as wrong as you could be, miscategorizing true consumer interest as "hype" and thus claiming there was none before.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apple includes features that actually work when the product is released, not half-cooked or fantasy features for the sake of making a bigger list. The most ridiculous thing about Motorola's product is the lack of real, rather than "real soon now" features and the poor quality and testing of the features it actually has. Rushed and sloppy. No excuse for that.
Not having Flash is a feature. I don't have it on my desktop and I sure as hell don't want it on my phone or tablet.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
Have you considered a Nook Color? It's cheap - 250 dollars and, if rooted, it is a fully functional Android tablet.
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I also consider the tablet market 'useless' because you can't really do any real work on a tablet (unless you're in a niche where keyboards aren't required).
Except that all current tablets support keyboards quite well, and have really good virtual keyboards in addition. And there are a ton of apps to support writing, including some that support using a stylus if you choose.
But beyond that you have no idea of what can be done on a modern tablet. I have met a number of people who have replaced laptops with an iPad because the iPad works perfectly well at correspondence and writing documents.
I also find it works better at drawing than a PC (unless you buy a tablet) and it's also better suited to playing music than anything other than a real instrument.
At this point the only thing that keeps the iPad being a truly viable replacement for a computer is the need to sync it to a computer. But if you buy in an Apple Store you can have them set it up there, and then just buy apps and media on the device going forward (though it makes me cringe at the thought of people doing that and not backing up the device regularly).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I want to be able to decide for myself which software I run on my computer
Then buy an iPad and jailbreak it.
Stop pretending you don't have a choice when you do, just so that you can claim some rational reason for your choice beyond sheer hatred of Apple. If you want to not buy a product simply because you hate the company than admit that, and don't claim it's a technical issue when it's not.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If it makes that big of a difference in iOS, that just means iOS is broken.
Non-tablet apps run just fine without tweaks in nearly all situations on Android tablets. I haven't used a single tablet-optimized app on my Huawei S7 - they just properly handled the lcd.density variable and adjusted their rendering to take into account the difference.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
One has Flash and the other doesn't.
Don't get me wrong, I have an iPad2 (I'm getting a wifi only Xoom later this month) and it's great and seems to beat Xoom in quite a few areas, but I cannot fathom how you can compare their web experiences and call them equivalent when flash still doesn't exist on iOS due to Jobs' ridiculous ego.
They're not equivalent. The question is, how much value is there in Flash, and how much do you care if you don't have it? Aside from youtube and clones of youtube, I keep FlashBlock running on all my browsers at home and at work, and I don't ever look at Flash, ever. I guess if you do a lot of online Flash games or something, then it has value. I've heard a coworker talk about a streaming music site called GrooveShark that depends on it too, but for me, there's little to no value in Flash at all, so lacking it wouldn't hurt at all.
- Vincit qui patitur.
Updates can be done directly from the App Store.
For an example, go look at http://www.foreflight.com/ipad (an app for pilots with moving map charts, weather, instrument approach procedures, etc).
Now think about how that would scale down to a phone simply by scaling the UI elements. Guess what - it doesn't.
It completely changes how I manage my workload in the cockpit, and if it had the same UI as their phone version, I wouldn't use it at all.