Motorola Xoom Review: The First Honeycomb Tablet Arrives
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 23, 2011 11:57 PM ESTPerformance
With Honeycomb, Google enabled full GPU acceleration across the OS. As a result, I had hoped that we’d have a very Windows Phone 7 like experience in Android 3.0. For the most part, it’s similarly smooth, but it’s still not quite perfect.
Performance in Honeycomb seems even more dependent on background apps than with earlier versions of Android. I’m not sure if that’s because Honeycomb is less aggressive about kicking processes out of memory or if I’m simply doing more with the OS on a larger screen, but I found myself killing tasks manually more frequently in Honeycomb than I did on Froyo. It’s also possible that with faster hardware and a faster OS that any slowdown, even if only minor, is more perceptible.
Swiping between home screens is butter smooth under Honeycomb, as is interacting with widgets and notifications. Applications launch quickly and scrolling in them is smoother than any other Android release. Even scrolling in the browser is finally smooth on Android, although I don’t believe it’s quite up to par with iOS/WP7. Granted Honeycomb doesn’t support Flash yet so it’s too early to tell how Flash integration will change the browsing experience, but I wonder if the delay on integrating flash has to do with ensuring that browser scrolling performance isn’t hurt.
As we saw with the Atrix 4G, performance benchmarks may be slower on the Xoom due to its higher native resolution (1280 x 800) than the competitors. This is particularly evident in the 3D gaming tests. I almost wonder if we'll begin seeing higher performing SoCs in tablets going forward, with lighter hardware being used in smartphones. It's clear that these smartphone SoCs, while fine for lower res smartphones, don't have the compute horsepower or memory bandwidth to cope with higher resolution displays.
I'm also not entirely sure what's going on in the Quadrant results as there are some significant drops in performance on the Xoom vs. Atrix. This could be a Honeycomb thing or an issue with the benchmark itself.
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GotThumbs - Friday, March 18, 2011 - link
Hold out a little longer...599 WIFI only coming March 27th. Hope you didn't buy the Archos yet. Early adopters always pay more $$$. If you just wait a little while...the prices always adjust after buying slows down at higher price. Thats just the economics of it. Apple is able to sell at higher prices, so why would they lower them.GotThumbs - Friday, March 18, 2011 - link
Coming out Mrch 27th. Hold on a little longer for a better tablet. My boss offered to buy me the new IPAD2 the other day. I told him 'no thanks, its either an ADAM or a Xoom or nothing" The ADAM is still developing their production and having growing pains.....the product is excellent and will be a great addition to the tablet market when it arrives in stores...for now...its Xoom. Now with the WIFI version coming out...it will boost sales for those consumers who did not want the 3g option and high cost.Android_Blogger - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
Apparantly, the 3G version costs 600 GBP in the UK at least. Source: <a href="http://www.motorola-xoom.co.uk/">UK Xoom Tablet blog</a>Android_Blogger - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
Source:www.motorola-xoom.co.ukspambonk - Sunday, April 10, 2011 - link
What I don't get are the specs on Amazon which says this device also has a 2.1 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile inside??? What, it has both a tegra and a intel core 2??? What is this madness.fentleson - Friday, April 15, 2011 - link
Better screens. Resolution isnt as important as screen quality.vtx1300 - Friday, April 15, 2011 - link
HD front and rear cameras - USB2/3, GigE and E-SATA connections and a Free (commercial sponsored?) Data PlanDixon Butz - Sunday, April 17, 2011 - link
I want to see a slide out keyboard. Or a mini removable keyboard.911dude - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 - link
I'm wondering about the effect that the pending ATT buyout of T-Mobile will have on the future of Xoom.ANDROCELES - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link
I HOPE 2 TRY ONE