

Motorola Xoom price official: $799 unsubsidized on Verizon, $600 for WiFi-only - sandipc
http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/16/motorola-xoom-price-official-799-unsubsidized-on-verizon-600/

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eftpotrm
I can buy a 3G USB dongle for, what, £20? Heck, for that price difference, I
can buy a whole 3G Kindle.

I find it very hard to believe they're both subsidised _that_ heavily by their
respective backers, so why (other than supporting the price of overpriced 3.7"
tablets, er smartphones) is the 3G enabled tablet _so_ much more expensive?

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Tichy
The main problem for me is that they destroyed trust by refusing to update the
Android OS on some of their phones. Presumably the same thing will happen on
the tablet.

I wish for a "Nexus One" of Honeycomb tablets...

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kbob
Google got burned when they tried to sell Nexus phones directly; they couldn't
match the carriers' bundled prices. But it might make sense for Google to sell
a WiFi-only tablet directly.

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r00fus
Via which retail store? They need someone to actually sell the product, and
Google has no experience with end-customer product sales.

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wmf
The Nexus S is in Best Buy. Having no retail for the Nexus One was dumb, but
Google _has_ learned.

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npalli
Wow, completely amazing pricing. Going to get the wi-fi version. This
completely blow away the current iPad. Has front/back facing camera with video
capture, better resolution, dual-core processor with graphics acceleration,
HDMI, USB, microSD, Android 3.0 etc. Good strategy of going after the high
end. After all, in another 6 months you will be able to get the current iPad
like specs on the low end for $300/$400 from commodity players.

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christophe971
Then it's doomed. Any tablet with a higher price than the iPad fails to
generate any kind of lasting interest, I don't see why it will be different
here.

Which is sad, the Xoom looks like a great tablet.

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cryptoz
The Xoom will mostly compete with the yet-to-be-announced iPad 2. The Xoom's
specs completely blow the original iPad out of the water, so it's likely okay
that it's priced above the current iPad; we'll have to wait and see what the
iPad 2 brings to the table. If Apple can hit similar specs at a cheaper price
then you might be right, but I doubt that'll happen.

The Xoom also has the Honeycomb advantage; I wonder what iPad 2's UI will look
like. I think you underestimate how impressed average people will be when
casually browsing tablets in stores. Honeycomb is _gorgeous_.

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Andrewski
It needs to have higher specs, as it is running a knocked off Java. And as
good as honeycomb cereal is, Android is pretty sluggish and ugly compared to
iOS. iOS is <I><b>gorgeous.</b></I>

Nobody bought the iPad because of specs, aside from the battery life. If you
think they did, you still do not understand the market, and are probably
baffled that people are not buying Intel based tablets.

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cryptoz
> It needs to have higher specs, as it is running a knocked off Java

What? This makes no sense at all. How are those two thoughts related at all?
And Android runs real Java, not "knocked off" Java.

> And as good as honeycomb cereal is, Android is pretty sluggish and ugly
> compared to iOS. iOS is <I><b>gorgeous.</b></I>

Oh I see, you're a troll. I'll respond anyway. Android is not sluggish
compared to iOS; especially given that Honeycomb isn't even out in the wild
running on real devices yet, this statement is totally unfounded. I'll grant
you that iOS is gorgeous, though. But so is Honeycomb. :)

> Nobody bought the iPad because of specs, aside from the battery life. If you
> think they did, you still do not understand the market, and are probably
> baffled that people are not buying Intel based tablets.

iPad was a new product in a new form factor. It was a "game-changer". Nobody
bought it based on specs because they had nothing to compare it to. I'm
definitely not suggesting that people will buy new tablets based on specs
either, but it will matter that the two devices are in the same league.

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Andrewski
I'm not a troll, I'm perfectly serious. I am pointing out that Google claims
that Dalvik "IS NOT JAVA!!!" which is funny because everybody knows Android
runs Java™.

Additionally, the specs are irrelevant when comparing the iPad, which runs C
applications, to something that must ram everything through a Java VM. And I
mean, irrelevant to geeks, as the platforms are so different that it is
impossible to compare them based on specifications. To normal people, the
specs are completely, 100%, totally irrelevant, aside from battery life.

The new iteration of Android has some UI tweaks, but it's still awfully busy.
It's clearly made for the power user who cares about specs. I mean, yeah, you
can see two things at once. Ordinary people will just say "I typed in the
wrong window." It seems like an important spec to be able to have an arbitrary
number of things going on at once on the device, and their Expose knockoff is,
well, an Expose knockoff, but I just wonder if they thought this through all
the way, or if they are thinking in a Microsoft sort of way, that one more
bullet point on a spec sheet will make that sale.

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snitko
There's also Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1" coming out soon, wonder what the price
would be for that device. With all this new subscription policy mess Apple is
making, I'd rather be sure I have a Kindle and an Audible apps and not
overpaying for the content, so I'm seriously considering an Android tablet.

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blinkingled
Glad to see Moto doing the most sensible thing - Very appealing price even
when compared against the yet-hypothetical iPad 2 which is not likely to have
1Gb of RAM, dual cameras or USB 2.0 port for that matter.

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Synaesthesia
I'm almost certain the iPad 2 will have 1gb RAM, a dual Core CPU, and at least
a front facing camera. It won't have a USB port though.

Guess we'll have to wait and see though!

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Andrewski
What an awful name. Of course the iPad gas a lame name, but at least it has an
obvious pronunciation. I see "Xoom" and say "exhume" which means to dig a body
up.

I think I smell the reek of death. Now if the exhume was only say, $300 for
the wifi only unit, they'd have something. Even $400 would be too much for
what consumers will call a "generic iPad" as even the hard-up could find
another $99 if they already had $400 to drop on a toy like a tablet.

Exhume indeed. This may illustrate to clever marketers that for a lot of
people, the obvious and seemingly correct pronunciation for a clever brand
might bite them. My grandpa called Qwest "queue west" as they made him wait
for a customer service agent too long for his liking. He was onto something.

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sandipc
when the Apple tablet was announced, the chosen name for the device was
subject to ridicule for weeks on the internet. After it became one of the
fastest selling tech products ever, the internet whiners were nowhere to be
found...

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Andrewski
What do you mean? The name is still awful.

Hell I am writing this on my iPad, and I still think it is an awful name.

On edit: you missed my main point, which is that Xoom has no clear
pronunciation. Is it "zoom?" I am supposing that is what they want me to call
it, but "exhume" is what it looks like.

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ugh
$600 is a good price point. Great to see that they will not only be selling a
$800 model.

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kenjackson
That $600 is a good price point for this device. I'm tempted to get one...

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bane
$299 for the 3g, $250 for the wifi, then we'll talk.

