Best Tablet for 2012
The Motorola XOOM is a powerful tablet that offers nearly all the traditional features of a desktop PC, but it's in a 10.1 inch tablet that's just half an inch thick. I have the pleasure of supporting 3 of them at work right now. So far this would be my choice for Best Tablet 2012.
Best Tablet for 2012
Best Tablet for 2012
Best Tablet for 2012
Best Tablet for 2012
Who makes it: Motorola
Price Range: $ 380-$ 450 for wi-fi only version. 3 g and 4 g XOOM's can run as much as $ 800 depending on if you sign up for a 2 year data contract from a cellular provider. This review is on the Wi-Fi only version of the Motorola XOOM (which is all I've worked with so far).
Who's it for: This a hardcore tablet. It's got a lot of power and features. It's perfectly suited for home and corporate users who want thedesktop experience right in the palm of their hand, however if you're just trying to browse the internet and read some ebooks there are more affordable tablets out there.
Motorola XOOM Hardware Features
The XOOM isn't playing around when it comes to hardware. It's beefy. Motorola popped in a dual core 1 ghz nVidia Tegra 2 processor, 1 GB of DDR2 Ram, 32 GB's of internal storage and a 10 hour battery (and that's 10 hours of actually using the tablet)! That's a lot of power for a tablet.
Motorola didn't skimp on wireless connectivity either. The XOOM comes with 802.11 N Wi-Fi and it also supports A, B and G signal types as well. Blue-tooth is also included so you'll be able to use accessories like headsets or even connect it to yourhands-free blue tooth system in your car (which is great for those turn by turn directions played via your car Speakers).
The XOOM allows you to setup 5 home screens ". Each of these home screens can contain different applications and widgets. While this isn't a big deal in the corporate environMent it does make sharing the XOOM at home with other people much easier. Speaking of widgets ... you can add dozens of widgets on each home screen. These widgets are scrollable (for example you can scroll through emails on the email widget), stackable and now re-sizable!
Unlike the iPad, the XOOM completely supports Adobe Flash (v. 10.2), so you won't be limited to viewing just half of the sites on the Internet. You should know that flash content uses the battery almost twice as Fast. I Know10 hours if your internet browsing becomes 5 if you're on rich flash websites.
Multitouch gestures are there too, for example, you can use 2 fingers to pinch zoom in and expand (zoom out) any website, picture or movie.
Email: You can add as many corporate or personal email accounts as you want. Our XOOM users here at work have Microsoft Exchange and gmail accounts configured on their XOOMs. So far it works perfectly.
XOOM is Multi-tasker. You can download music files, Watch a video or play a game all at the same time, there's no need to wait for something to finish. Tabbed web browsing is also available in the XOOM. It's just like your desktop.
Best Tablet for 2012