Xoom vs. Touchpad (vs. Kindle Fire)
With news yesterday that Amazon is shipping its new Kindle Fire early, I thought this was as good a time as any to discuss what I've discovered in the tablet wars. Some of you will remember that I'd been seeking input into what kind of tablet device I should buy, with the only caveat being that I refuse to buy an Apple product (this is for philosophical reasons I'm happy to discuss in the comments if you're truly interested, but they have nothing to do with the quality of Apple products).
As one of the earliest Kindle adopters on Earth (I got my 1st gen Kindle in early 2008), I never thought I'd abandon the Kindle in favor of a tablet. I always thought the iPad was kinda gimmicky, and that everyone else was just trying to play catch-up. Besides, when I'm reading I want to read - I don't want the distraction of multiple apps, my email going off, etc.
But my wife was all over me to get her a tablet. I knew I wouldn't buy Apple, so I started looking into the Android devices. At the time, the iPad's closest competition was the Motorola Xoom, and it was weighing in at $799. My wife is a tech novice, so there's no way she was going to be able to get 800 bucks worth of value out of what I knew was going to be an Angry Birds platform.
Then Hewlett-Packard threw up all over themselves. I'd been researching tablets for some time at that point, and I knew what I was looking for. When the H-P Touchpad was fire-saled at $99, I knew I had to have one. Unfortunately, everyone else did too. I had multiple orders cancelled and couldn't get my hands on one anywhere.
But the sudden demand for Touchpads seemed to drive the prices of other tablets down, and one day I got an email from Woot offering a refurbished 32gb Xoom for $369. I bought it immediately, and it showed up a week later. I played with it for a while before giving it to the wife, and it is a pretty slick platform. Android is nice, and the app store has just about everything you can think of.
The whole time I'm getting to know the Xoom, I'm still looking for a cheap Touchpad - because now the Xoom has me wanting a tablet of my own. Boom. One night I find a 32gb Touchpad on Amazon, new in box, for $249. I buy it and the thing actually makes it to me a week later.
I've had the Touchpad for about three weeks now, and I've done a lot of experimenting with it. I'm sort of a closet geek, so I bought it to see how I could monkey with it, if I could get an Android build to take, and end up with a $700 Android tablet I paid $250 for. In the meantime I got the Kindle app working (it doesn't work out of the box if you're outside the US) and it has completely changed the way I read (and shop for books, frankly). I can somewhat wistfully say that I haven't touched my actual Kindle since.
So I wanted to give you guys a side-by-side comparison of the two devices in case you're considering getting one.
PRICE
Motorola Xoom 32gb WiFi 10.1-inch (refurbished) - $369
H-P Touchpad 32gb Wifi 9.7-inch (New In Box) - $249
Advantage: Touchpad
OPERATING SYSTEM
Xoom - Android Honeycomb
Touchpad - WebOS
Advantage: Xoom - though this is probably a temporary advantage as there is already a stable Android build for the Touchpad but it doesn't yet allow touchscreen capability. Once that's worked out, the advantage probably swings slightly to the Touchpad with its faster processing speed (1.2 GHz vs 1 GHz on the Xoom).
APPS
Xoom - Android App Store
Touchpad - H-P/Pre Apps
Advantage: Xoom - Huge advantage of the Xoom here. The Android store probably has millions of apps available, where apps for the Touchpad are somewhat limited. Oddly enough, the explosion in demand for Touchpads since the price reduction has cause a mini-explosion in Touchpad apps, so even though WebOS has been (or is being) discontinued, developers continue to create and support apps for it.
LOOK AND FEEL
The two devices are pretty similar here. The Xoom is slightly larger and feels a little bulkier, but it packs more gadgetry. I prefer the Touchpad but that's a completely subjective preference, possibly influenced by its lower price tag. The on/off swith on the Touchpad is definitely more user friendly, however.
Advantage: Touchpad
GADGETS
The Xoom is pretty much the gold standard in tablet add-ons, and I think it offers even more than the iPad. It has front and rear-facing cameras (the Touchpad only has front facing), and its memory is expandable. It offers an HDMI plug-in, though I can't for the life of me figure out what good it is (displaying pictures on a tv, I guess). Both devices have USB ports.
Advantage: Xoom
Overall, I'm pleased with both devices but it's the Touchpad I really enjoy. If I were in the market for a cheap tablet today, it would come down to the 32gb Touchpad or the Kindle Fire - which is only an 8gb device and only 6gb of that is usable. Of course, with the Touchpad you run the risk of obsolesence, as H-P is no longer going to support them. But that might not be the case for another couple years, and how long do you expect any $250 device to last you?
The other thing I don't like about the Kindle Fire is its 7" screen. You can comfortably read on a 7" screen, but I don't know how well suited a screen that size is to watching movies or tv shows. If you've got kids and you spend a lot of time at the park, that's something to consider. Also, the 8gb of storage (6gb usable) is a little hinky. Amazon says you don't need a bunch of storage because everything is stored for free in "the cloud", but what if you don't have an Internet connection?
Anyway, I just thought I'd let you guys know what I found. As an owner of both the Motorola Xoom and the H-P Touchpad, I personally prefer the Touchpad. But they're both great devices. If I ever get my Touchpad running Android, I'll be off to the races.
I've probably missed a bunch of stuff, so if you have any specific questions hit me with them in the comments.
If you have not looked into the new Asus Transsformer Prime (especially with the keyboard dock) that is coming out in a few weeks, you need to. It blows every other tablet out of the water in every single category. ~$500.00
If you don't want to spend $500, the original Asus transformer is going to be $250 at Best Buy on black Friday and it is rumored to keep the same price at a few places for cyber Monday.
One more thing, if it is for your wife, the additional keyboard dock turns the tablet into a netbook while keeping touchscreen capabilities, which means it would be easier for her to use in terms of home typing.
Also, the dock keeps a separate battery that does not drain the tablets battery. This means when you plug into the dock, it stops using the tablets battery and reverts to the dock's battery, which expands the total battery life. This is useful if you travel. Further, the dock supplies additional USB ports.
Look at the benchmark stats:
http://androidandme.com/2011/11/news/asus-transformer-prime-benchmarks-…
Also:
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/11/asus-transformer-prime-preview/
I urge you to consider this tablet.
I have the touchpad and find it great as a work tablet. The multi-tasking makes working between documents and apps fluid, and the platform also supports office and adobe. Granted the app base isn't great, but if I wanted a tablet to download and play hundreds of games, I'd buy an ipad.
Btw that transformer prime looks amazing, I might have to check it out when it debuts.
Yes Asus Transformer Prime. Its got some insane hype and can back it up with the raw horsepower its got pushing that baby. A truly next generation device
well i'll tell you the blackberry playbook is a beast. access to all the android market, free internet, great multi-tasking have your bbm, email from your blackberry on your tablet. pretty awesome i think
Eddie, good timing. I am thinking of getting one of these for my girlfriend for the holidays, and I have no clue what tablet to get her.
She's a dermatology resident and has these insanely large textbooks (about 20lbs each) that I think would be perfect for a tablet - she is stuck studying in her apt since moving them is a bitch. Unfortunately when I looked on Amazon, I think most of these textbooks still don't have an e-version....but I still think it would be a great gift since she likes to travel and read.
So question, are these tablets good to read on, or is there glare like you're reading from a computer screen? Wasn't one of the main selling points of the original Kindle that fact that it looked like real paper? And if there needs to be images in the text (dermatology textbooks, etc), which one should I go for?
Thanks, Patrick
Amazon products are fairly glare resistant.
My fiance is a doctor, when she was in med school, I would say about 50% of her books were offered on kindle version. She didn't like the idea of using kindle textbooks (she likes to highlight and write in the books).
Kindle does have an app available in the android market which really makes the point of buying a kindle over a tab moot.
I urge you to look at either the Asus Eee transformer or the new Asus Transformer Prime. Both are premier tablets that have the ability of having a keyboard dock attached to it turning it into a touch capable netbook. The keyboard dock increases battery life which also makes it perfect for travel. For a student this could come in handy as a multi tool for school (ability to write on tablet with stylus or with the keyboard). You can also get fully functional office compatible software (including excel) for about 10-15 dollars.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mobisystems.editor.office_reg…..
As I mentioned above, Best Buy will be selling the Eee transformer for $250 during black friday and they are suppose to be having the same deal on cyber monday.
Take a look at the link I posted in the beginning of this thread for an in-depth review of the prime (including aspects like glare).
I have a Kindle Fire on order and am primarily going to use it for reading. As sad as this sounds, my iPad (with case) is too heavy to read with my weak arms and most of my bootleg scanned PDFs don't take full advantage of the larger screen size anyway so the smaller Kindle seems ideal. If that Amazon Prime book library thing really takes off then I'll save a grip of money and space. I bought my iPad for music production apps that are not likely to get ported to Android but if it wasn't for that and the new Asus was out at the same time, it would be a no brainer. That thing is sick.
Check out today's Woot:
http://www.woot.com/sale/velocity-micro-cruz-android-tablet-with-7-capa…
7" Android touchscreen tablet for $70.
I've been waiting out for the Transformer Prime as well, but being that i'm not in any hurry, I might wait a little longer and see how Windows 8 pans out
I've started seeing the early user reviews for the new Kindle Fire, and it sounds like it's definitely not ready for prime time. People are willing to overlook a lot because of the low pricetag, but when you've got a crappy email agent and no support for Facebook and Twitter, it looks like it might have come to market a wee bit too early.
No one with half a tech savvy brain cell will buy the kindle fire because it is a kindle fire. People will buy it once a good, fully operational android ROM can be flashed to it.
Same thing that happened with the first B&N Nook.
My friend got a Nook Color and I was amazed at how easy it was to flash proper Android on it (boot with ROM on SD card lol)
I actually just this minute got around to overclocking my Touchpad. Unbelievably simple, and now the thing is like a rocket (and it was fast before).
Laboriosam velit culpa doloribus sit qui. Aut itaque dolor nesciunt labore. Sint aut ut maiores quas dignissimos quae a.
Qui natus et aliquid omnis quibusdam autem. Officiis quaerat nostrum ut reprehenderit recusandae. Temporibus quaerat alias sit eum quas quas.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...