Last Updated: May 16, 2011 8:30 AM

First published: April 11, 2011

Xoom - Android HoneyComb tablet

http://www.motorola.com/staticfiles/Consumers/US-EN/TABLETS/tablets.html

The dual core CPU is fast and responsive. UX leaves gaps, need improvements

OS Update

- didn't tell you what changed

3.1 - movie studio shortcut broke, need to add again. Not all the gadgets are resizable yet (gmail, bookmark - yes, clock, twitter - no)

Red Light of Death

- sometimes it won't power on, the front camera's red light just blinks. people in forum said Power/lock+Volume Up force reboot can do it (sometimes)

MicroSD

- need to wait for Firmware update

Flash

- original 3.0 need 3/11 OTA update to 3.0.1 to use 3/18 Flash 10.2 beta (already comes with new firmware for new ones)
- final Flash 10.2 waiting 3.x update
- 3.1 ok for 10.3?

Screen Capture

- No hardware key? (power+home on iOS) need to root and install app or USB tether to PC with SDK? ...

https://supportforums.motorola.com/message/342933

Browsers

CNBC, Engadget, Yahoo Hong Kong all detected it as phone and switch to mobile versions. (got CNBC to desktop version once). Have to do about:debug (no change in UI), go to settings, debug and change UAstring from Android to desktop.

Youtube still change to m.youtube.com version. Sharing URI redirection to desktop doesn't work in Firefox.

If Firefox 4 installed, would ask which to use until change setting, it comes back and ask again after a while.

Gmail

cannot turn off conversation?

HDMI

just need straigt Type D (v1.4) micro-HDMI cable to output 720p (a little bit overscan crop on pana tv) [supposedly can do 1080p, problem with kernel]

Video

picky, got some H.264 .mp4 won't play, guess have to recompress to baseline profile

https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/63258

http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/media-formats.html#core

HandBrake

turn off B-Frames, CABAC Entropy Coding, 8x8 Transform, Weighted P-Frames

Mediacoder

Turn off B-Frames in x264. both baseline level 3.1 or 4.0 work.

Music

not so sure about the diagonal coverflow. simple list option?

Transfer

mount as filesystem is a lot better than iOS only give you photos, the rest have to use iTunes

CJK input

no built-in CJK (Chinese-Traditional, Chinese-Simplified, Japanese, Korean), pinyin, handwriting etc. IME (no in iOS 3 either, fixed in iOS4), has Mandarin & Yue voices. (via Google) and Google pinyin IME that you can download

MultiLing does work too well - enable said device not supported platform, vertical scroll select language doesn't work, have to use space bar horizonal scroll. Developer @HanWriting says fixing it

MarketPlace

Flash 10.2 beta install, first time didn't even work. AIR crashed during install, have do it second time.

only work in landscape mode.

confusing YouTube listed, but doesn't install

updates screen didn't highlight changes (vs AppStore), popup on status bar is kind of annoying.

multiple places show progress bar is both good and bad.

Crashed

have to force close these so far- MarketPlace, browser, twitter, CNBC RT (it is funny, try to send email to support), CNN (go back to first launch), and USA Today.

Apps

Good ones

Amazon Kindle, Pulse, USA Today, CNN (slow) are good.

CNBC RT tablet friendly - cannot re-order my stock?

Twitter

no three column, still phone version, not tablet (still fullscreen, better than 1x, 2x on iOS)

CNBC for Android Phone

CNBC for Android Phone not tablet aware

The Weather Channel

not using the tablet features

Bloomberg

not tablet aware. Ridiciouslt long EUAL, it fills the 2 screens with tiny text.

vs. iOS iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, iPad 2

Safari - Browser
Mail - Gmail & Email
Calendar - Calendar
Contacts - Contacts
Camera - Camera
Maps - Maps
iPod - Music
Videos - Movie Studio
YouTube - YouTube
iBooks (download) - Books
Photos - Gallery
App Store - Market & Downloads
Settings - Settings

doesn't come with Notes, Weather, Stock, FaceTime, Photo Booth, Game Center, iTunes. But come with Cordy and Dungeon Defense games, Google Search, Voice Search, Latitude, Navigation, Places, Talk, Clock, Calculator

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