Motorola Xoom 2 Media Edition Android tablet Like Goldilocks with porridge, I’ve yet to find a tablet size that I think is just right. Seven inch models are too small, 10.1 inchers too big. The iPad with its 9.7in screen should do the trick but it’s just too square for me – physically and metaphorically. Motorola Xoom 2 Media Edition Android tablet Cut down to size: …
Decent price, lovely screen etc etc. I read throught the specs and yet another one of the OEMs has done again. Only 16 Gb on board and no expansion slot! I have to ask - do they want to sell me a tablet or not? There is no excuse for this. If they cannot deliver *both* connectivity *and* expansion at a reasonable price (I do not expect to pay bottom feeder prices, I am willing to part with some proper wonga) why are they in this business at all? Moto was *one* step away from persuading yours truly to open his wallet and make a large number of moths homeless and they managed to fumble the ball - unfarkingbelievable.
Mark me down as another Artic Fox - this is 'so close, yet so far'. My current 'square' tablet is used for media 70% of the time, and my next tablet will need to be more 'widescreen' based on this usage. I'm sick of the size of the black bars when watching 16:9 media.
I have less issue with the read-only media port, but the battery life and charge times are an issue. The biggest issue though (for me) is lack of 3G, as the other 30% of my usage is done on the train, catching up on email, facebook, posting crap on El Reg etc.
If the Xoom Media offered 64GB at £350 I'd buy one. With 16GB & no external storage then no way. Samsung Galaxy 8.9 also lacks external storage & is way overpriced.
Have several 32GB Micro Cards which I flip flop between the original Xoom & a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 Inch.
The Xoom with Android 3.2 does have Write capability to the Micro Card.
Streaming is not an option for me.
Both the Xoom & SGT7 have poor reproduction of Zinio mags. Mags open as a blurred images & then sharpen. Consequently they are too slow & not fit for purpose. Kindle eBooks & PDFs are pretty much OK. Contrast to iPad, iPad 2 & 4S which are instantaneous in all respects.
Await Android 4 for Xoom which may give improved performance.
Hopefully by mid year we'll start to see some decent Android Tablet offerings with the right balance of features, performance & pricing across a range of screen sizes.
"If the Xoom Media offered 64GB at £350 I'd buy one. With 16GB & no external storage then no way."
I would have actually been willing to go up to a max of £400 *if* they had just included external storage and a larger battery. What is really annoying about this is that they currently do not appear to be able to get it right with both connectivity, external storage and battery size in relation to the needs of the device at *any* 'kin price - and that really gets up my nose! -:)
Since a number of the companies concerned have (whatever *we* may think about the issue) signed licensing agreements with "A Certain Major Software Company" that would seem to be at least an incomplete explanation. Especially since there are several examples of the companies concerned *including* expansion but neglecting something on the connectivity front - that was in fact my point in my posting at the beginning of this thread.
............you may very well be correct in your suspicions -:). However, they are *all* bloody doing it currently. If they don't fall down over the one criteria, they fall down over the other. What they do not seem to understand or be willing to accept is that to a significantly greater degree than with other devices the non-iPad tablet market is an enthusiasts market. Far more of the customers (at the present time) for Android tablets are likely to get the ars**le over such issues than in, say, the mob market. They do not have the large pool of well-heeled non-technophiles that form a significant portion of Cupertino's customer base. If they are going to persuade *us* who do care about such issues to part with serious money for medium to high end kit then they are just going to have to stop screwing around in this way.
Hopefully it ships with a functioning charger. Now on my third for the original Xoom, which in all other respects is a great pice of kit. I would agree that this size appears to about optimum for 90% of my tablet usage; 10" is just a little too large for comfortable use while commuting.
The Xoom has a 24Wh battery, so to charge it in a reasonable time takes quite a bit of power. The proprietary charger supplies 12V 1.5A. A USB charger would need to supply 3.6A for the same power, considerably more than 'standard' USB chargers (mostly 1A, maybe 1.5A if you're lucky), and probably more than the micro USB connector could handle.
Having said that it would be very useful if tablets could charge at reduced rate from USB ports or chargers. Then again having uSD would be useful too...
The biggest issue for me is the battery. Lasting barely longer than a modern laptop; even Moto only rate it at 6hrs for browsing, which is nowhere near enough for me.
I agree with Arctic Fox - very close with this one, but unjustifiable compromises mean that the wait for a decent Android tablet continues.
So once I've put on a few albums, a TV series and a few films, I'll be out of space - I've got a 32GB MicroSD in my Sensation and that's well over half full, without the videos!
A very strange choice for what would otherwise be maybe the perfect tablet..
What are the tablet designers on ?
I have an Ipad2 which the biggest pain in the ass is no external storage provision, just to add I did not buy this and would not have for this exact reason. This feature is top of my list for my next tablet purchase and anything missing it will be scrubbed from the list.
Try again Motoraola.
"The iPad with its 9.7in screen should do the trick but it’s just too square for me – physically and metaphorically."
That's because it's a tablet computer not a personal media player.
If you want a widescreen ratio screen you're better off buying a personal media player rather than buying a tablet with a narrow screen.
Don't stop there! By Giles' logic you will also need to buy:
- a separate e-reader for reading ebooks
- a separate MP3 player for listening to music.
- a laptop for typing emails / documents
- a handheld game console for playing games
- a separate dedicated GPS for navigation
- The connections to the display are made at the edges?
- You can hold it without obscuring part of the display?
- It allows the case to be strengthened round the edges?
- It allows things (connectors, speakers?) to be incorporated without having to make the whole device thicker?
"...with stereo effects exaggerated and loud bangs and booms seeming to come from the back rather than the sides of the tablet."
Oh dear oh dear. The whole point of a subwoofer (the .1 bit) is that it's only supposed to produce sound at sufficiently low frequencies that you CANNOT hear the direction it's coming from!
...but if it behaved like a subwoofer is supposed to, it would be a shift from a particular direction to a general ambient noise with no identifiable direction. The trouble with the cheap multi-channel sound systems with those tiny "satellite" speakers is that they cannot reproduce a large proportion of lower frequencies that are still high enough for their direction to be discernible. So either they all have to come out of the subwoofer, losing stereo/surround sound information and coming from a direction they're not supposed to come from, or, more usually, the subwoofer is just designed to be a horrible boomy box which impresses the punters sufficiently that they don't miss the large part of the audio spectrum between the boom and the tizz.
But I digress. :-)
If we can get Tablets with semi decent vertical resolutions (At least until the iPad-3 comes out) of 768 or 800pixels WTF do laptop makers still release devices with even 16in screens with crappy vertical resolutions?
I know there is a real fad for everything to be a media player but some of us want to do real work that involves, you know doing stuff and not watching frigging widescreen movies.
My work laptop is such a thing. At least at work I can connect it up to a 1280x1024 screen. I have a Dell 24in 1920x1200 screen at home.
Using Eclipse and other dev tools on a widescreen laptop is a real PITA. Last week I went onsite with my old Thinkpad T43p with a 1600x1200 screen I picked up off ebay for £200. The customer was willing to buy it from me for double that...
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