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Eager to get your hands on Motorola’s Honeycomb-powered Xoom tablet? We’ve got good news and bad news. The good: it’s coming to Europe, including the UK. The bad: you’ll have to wait a little bit longer, as it’s due to launch on this side of the Atlantic in the second quarter of the year.
Still, that means Xoom should touch down here by the summer, ready to take on Apple’s iPad 2, LG’s Optimus Pad and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab II, among other second-generation tablets that are coming out this year.
Motorola says it will be bringing both the 3G/Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi-only versions of Xoom across from the States, although it hasn’t confirmed which mobile operators will be selling the 3G-capable one yet. The device is Motorola’s first tablet, but it’s already been warmly embraced by Google, which used it to showcase the new Android 3.0 Honeycomb software recently at a press event in the US.
A quick reminder of the Xoom’s key specs: 1GHz dual-core processor, 10.1-inch display with 1,280×800-pixel resolution, HDMI out, a 5-megapixel rear camera, a 2-megapixel front camera, and built-in gyroscope, barometer, compass and accelerometer.
The device runs Flash Player 10.1, will come preloaded with all of Google’s Honeycomb-powered Android apps — including Google Maps 5.0 — and has a claimed battery life of 10 hours for video playback.
The Motorola Xoom was first unveiled at the CES show in January this year. The device is due to go on sale in the US this month for $800, which is around £500 in the Queen’s sterling. Motorola has given no details of likely prices for the UK launch later this spring, though.
In our preview at CES, we warned we were “feeling the beginning of big love for the
Motorola Xoom”, and that verdict still holds true. That said, with the Optimus Pad using 3D as its killer feature and the Galaxy Tab II packing its own 10.1-inch punch, the competition will be fierce.
