Earlier this year Motorola’s first tablet the XOOM launched as the first Honeycomb tablet and had plenty of promise. Sadly the hefty size and bloated Verizon 3G data pricing didn’t help its cause. We now have the next-gen Xoom happily named the DROID XYBOARD tablets to see what they learned from their first attempt at a tablet. The XYBOARD has been hanging out with our team and a few Galaxy Nexus smartphones this week and below you’ll find our thoughts on this 8.2″ Honeycomb device.
We have an unboxing video and some hands-on with a few accessories from Motorola below but for now we’ll focus on this portable slate, its goofy name, and the hardware under the hood.
Hardware
The original Xoom was the first Honeycomb tablet and first with a dual-core NVIDIA processor — not counting that awful FroYo powered Viewsonic G-Tablet. The hardware was nice but compared to the iPad it was a bit on the heavy/thicker side and wasn’t the easiest to hold for long periods. The DROID XYBOARDS have completely took a new direction. They are thin, lightweight, and powerful but other than those key points this is still a XOOM if you ask me.
The new XYBOARD 8.2 feels great, has an eye-pleasing matte finish that is surprisingly easy to hold coming in at 216 x 139.8 x 8.99 mm and 390g — although it wont win any beauty contests. Sadly the power button is still on the rear. I hate flipping it over to make sure I hit the right button — or guessing and hitting the volume instead. Sadly this is one thing I’d really like to change but the sleek design didn’t make it extremely easy.
The specs are pretty similar but a few things have changed. Here we have an 8.2″ device with the same 1280 x 800 HD resolution. The processor has been swapped out to a faster dual-core 1.2 GHz SOC with 1GB of RAM, 32GB internal storage, 4G LTE, and a pair of cameras. The display is IPS and is a vast improvement over the first-gen XOOM so that is a plus. We have no SD slot but it does offer micro-USB (for charging) and I’m glad there isn’t a proprietary cable for that. It also sports an infrared port and can be used as a large universal remote when your not streaming content out the micro-HDMI.
Sadly it seems Motorola and Verizon rushed to market with these to meet this holiday sales time and this tablet is right on the edge of two important things. A quad-core processor and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. For someone that needs an excellent tablet with 4G connectivity right now though — this is great but its reign wont last long.
DROID XYBOARD 8.2 hands-on and unboxing
Software
The software is everything we’ve come to expect from Android 3.2 Honeycomb. Most tablets I’ve docked points if they have Gingerbread and while it’s too early to do the same with tablets and Ice Cream Sandwich, I just wish they’d have waited and released with the ice cold treat on board instead. What we do have though, is a larger DROID as Motorola has included their Blur UI changes that are present on all DROID phones. The changes to Honeycomb were extremely light and more to just match their other devices because it’s pretty minimal and performance is still excellent.
Being a DROID branded device it does have plenty of Verizon bloatware but you should be expecting that so I wont comment further there. We do have some worthwhile apps pre-loaded like Evernote and the awesome Madden 2012 NFL game. Not to mention Blockbuster, Amazon Kindle, and Netflix. Android 3.2 Honeycomb was more stable and smooth here than many in the past — including the original Xoom and the benchmarks below seem to back that up. I found zero slowdown from the changes by Motorola so that shouldn’t concern a potential buyer.
Benchmarks
As usual we like to run a few benchmarks to see how everything is performing and handling its day to day tasks and the XYBOARD 8.2 actually blew other tablets out of the water — not counting that quad-core Prime although we did get a higher Quadrant with this little guy. Rocking a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor and a 1280 x 800 resolution I wasn’t expecting much but I scored over 3100 in Quadrant (more than most tablets) and Vellamo was at the top of the charts. More info is in the full gallery below.
Camera
Motorola’s equipped these slates with a decent 5.0 megapixel camera on the rear with LED flash. Sadly just like many Motorola devices in the past while the UI is neat the shutter speed is extra slow and makes for a difficult time snapping a photo. Once I was able to hold still long enough for the awful autofocus and shutter speed I got a few decent shots. I’d rather use my smartphones camera but this will do if absolutely needed. Here’s a sample with more down below.
Battery Life
The XYBOARD 8.2″ is powered by a 3,980 mAh battery and is small enough that can be charged by a simple micro-USB cable. Charging from a computer or phone charger was extremely slow but the included charger did the job well. Using the tablet for some heavy Madden 2012 gaming followed by some benchmarks I found the need for a wall socket after around 6 hours which was pretty decent for the battery size. Other larger tablets pack a bigger punch so this seemed about average to me. Standby battery was excellent however — and using it off and on briefly without and major gaming sessions it’s been on for over 3 days with a single charge.
Accessories
Verizon and Motorola are offering a smart cover similar to the iPad 2 but the design was quite terrible and I couldn’t get it to work well enough to even warrant a photo. They do however offer an HD Dock for $59.99 from Verizon.com that works quite well and is universal to other Motorola devices — shown in the video sample below along with the wireless keyboard.
Wrap-Up & Value
Now value is determined more by the user and his/her needs. If you’d like a great WiFi tablet this is not for you. If you’re needing a 3G/4G capable tablet that also manages to be extremely portable and powerful this would probably be my first choice. With tethering and hotspots I’d rather get a cheaper WiFi model myself but that option isn’t available for everyone. Pricing start at $429.99 for the 16GB 8.2-inch version, all the way up to $729.99 for the 64GB 10.1-inch version — all with new 2-year contracts of course. They may be released as the XOOM 2 later with Wi-Fi only but for now Verizon is your only way into one of these tablets and sadly they are way too expensive.
Yes the new XYBOARD tablets are worthy successors to the original. They have amazing build quality, decent battery life and excellent performance but I can’t help it but want something more for the price. The unique design is nice and they do get a few added points for that. All in all I’ve enjoyed this tablet and been taking it everywhere with me all week but the price and handcuffs that come along with it have me thinking twice about a purchase. Everything you’d like to know about these tablets is available from our timeline, followed by the photo gallery and full specs below.
[device id=1981]
once again it waz a nice review
http://newtechpulse.com/2011/12/14/motrola-xyboard-review-price-features-and-specifications/
I am really impressed with the Xyboard by Motorola, I really love that it is one of the few that are compatible with Verizon’s 4G network. Plus, with the dual core processer this tablet will be great for streaming online video content, which is why I know it will go great with my Sling adapter from DISH. I can stream all my live channels and DVR recording to all my Android device everywhere I have 3G coverage or Wi-Fi. Over time I have created quite an extensive library of movies on my DVR and now, I can access them potentially anywhere. It’s a wonder I barely got the Sling adapter, since DISH is offering them free to all customers.
ASIANS CAN ACTUALLY READ MINDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
they can hear and see what your visually thinking
this is the complete truth
The reason a lot of Asians have completely expressionless faces, only associate with Asians and don’t associate with non Asians that much, and are very unfriendly in general is to avoid accidentally revealing that they can read minds. If all over a billion Asians where to show facial expressions all the time just as much as non Asians, associate with non Asians much more, and be much more friendly and talkative, then a lot of them might accidentally reveal that they can read minds by accidentally showing a facial expression or dirty look when someone thinks, or visually pictures something in their mind they don’t like, find astonishing, or funny etc because those people might see that and and really wonder what that was that just happened there and see the connection, if they all associated with non Asians a lot more then there would be a lot more people around for them to accidentally show facial expressions when those people think things they don’t like etc, so they only associate with Asians so there won’t be anyone around for them to see that and have any accidents happen in the first place.
Think about it, it’s not normal how a lot of them act, it’s not normal human behavior! and the entire way they act is all to hid their mind reading abilities, it makes perfect sense to do all of that to hide that they can read minds, because all of that is the perfect way to do it!
Every single Asian alive is hiding their mind reading abilities, they will always deny that they can read minds, they will lie about having mind reading abilities forever!!!
Because they value hiding their mind reading abilities more then their own lives!
That’s why nobody knows about it!
Try thinking, best yet visually picturing in your mind something absolutely crazy as you possibly can when you are around Asians, and try looking for Asians who give people particular looks, especially dirty looks for what appears to be for completely no reason, that is them giving people looks when they hear and visually see someone thinking something they don’t like, find astonishing, or funny etc.
It still happens spite a large percentage of Asians having completely expressionless faces all the time, it would just happen a lot more if none of them had completely expressionless faces all the time, it’s still not uncommon!
I know this sounds crazy, impossible and completely unbelievable, BUT IT ISN’T CRAZY WHEN ITS TRUE
The reason you think this truly is crazy, impossible, and unbelievable is because our society as propagandized us into believing that nothing extra ordinary is real, and that it is impossible that people can read minds, and that it is crazy to think that it’s true that people can read minds, all just to cover up that Asians can read minds! who says that can’t exist? the people who have mind reading abilities who are trying to cover it up!
You have to spread the message!!!!!
The world has to know about this!!!!!
The only things I like about my xyboard 8.2 is the size. Otherwise it’sas bad as my droid phone.
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