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.