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Motorola goes all crazy on us with the Xoom's Wi-Fi capabilities

One of the most highly anticipated tablets that will soon be heading to the market is the Motorola Xoom. The tablet was first announced during CES and will come packing Android 3.0 "Honeycomb".

The Xoom aims to impress with a dual-core processor, 10.1" 1280x800 display, 1GB of RAM, dual webcams, and a 3G wireless radio (which can be upgraded to LTE/4G). However, following the release of Motorola’s Super Bowl ad for the Xoom (which conveniently played on Apple's 1984 Super Bowl ad, this time with Apple as the oppressor), we're finding out some not-so-great information about the tablet.

For starters, the 32GB tablet is priced at $799.99 according to Best Buy. Data pricing isn't exactly cheap either, coming in at $20, $35, $50, and $80 for 1GB, 3GB, 5GB, and 10GB respectively.

The biggest hang-up, however, appears to be with Motorola's implementation of Wi-Fi on the Xoom. Engadget reports that customers will be forced to purchase at least one month's worth of 3G data (plus the accompanying activation fee) before Wi-Fi is even enabled on the device. We're hoping that this is just a typo in the Best Buy ad flyer, because that kind of restriction just won't fly with customers these days.

The Motorola Xoom will be made available on February 24. You can check out the Super Bowl commercial for the tablet and its minisite here.

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RE: Not worth it....
By Mitch101 on 2/7/2011 9:59:48 AM , Rating: 2
I bet its that price without a contract. Will probably be $399.00 with a 2 year agreement.

Im waiting for the Asus Eee to arrive.


RE: Not worth it....
By AEvangel on 2/7/2011 10:28:35 AM , Rating: 4
Yeah, but at that price I would rather have the iPad even though I personally am not an Apple fan. They do make a decent product(pricey as it is), combine that with the all apps, and customer support this tablet is not worth it @ $600+ price tag.

I don't think I would ever buy a tablet with contract tied to it when I already have one with my smart-phone. I mean why pay twice for the same data, most users are not going to use both their smart-phone and a tablet at the same time.


RE: Not worth it....
By omnicronx on 2/7/2011 12:14:54 PM , Rating: 3
This entire on contract BS is just beyond me. Who was the moron that thought that they could treat tablets like cell phones? Many people consider cell phones a need, pretty much nobody considers a tablet a need.

399 + whatever for data per year for a certain amount of time is not worth it. I'd rather have an iPad and buy data when I please (for example if you go on vacation, how many actually need to have tablet data, all the time?). For the vast majority, locking yourself into a data contract makes little sense.

Furthermore if this is an 800 dollar device unsubsidized, its not going to be 399 with a subsidy. I'd guess 500-600.

Best part is pretty much every phone is coming out with wireless tethering, if I really need to use it on the go.

I can see the need for some people, perhaps those in business etc.. but not for the vast majority.


RE: Not worth it....
By teldar on 2/7/2011 2:24:36 PM , Rating: 2
You apparently have NO clue how much a smart phone costs without buying it on a contact. $600 is normal then only $200 with a plan. Why would something only $200 more cost $400 more with a contact?


RE: Not worth it....
By omnicronx on 2/7/2011 2:56:17 PM , Rating: 2
Clearly you don't understand that you pay thousands of dollars a year for signing up for a cell phone plan over a long term.

You WONT be paying nearly that much for your few hundred MB's of data on a tablet. Plans go as low as 15 a month here (maybe less in the US I'm not sure), thats 360 dollars over 2 years. Thats not even half the cost of a device. With pretty much ANY cell phone plan, you will be paying for the entire device and then some over that same two year span.. A 30 dollar a month plan over 2 years would pay for any cell phone from any provider. (and lets face it, the majority of smartphone users do not have 30 dollar plans, so that number is conservative)

Comprendez? They can't subsidize it to even close to the levels of a phone because the plans are not worth as much, as such they won't be able to recoup costs like they would with cell phones.


RE: Not worth it....
By dwalton on 2/7/2011 2:17:23 PM , Rating: 2
When you pay $200 for the phone and close to $2000-$2600 over a 2 year period, carriers can easily subidize a few $100 dollars.

But at $20 or $35 a month data plan is only worth $480 and $840 over 2 years. At the higher priced data plans it makes sense to subidize but how much subidization is require to make paying $50-$80 dollars a month, for a measly 5-10Gb, worth it for a consumer.


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