[Xoom General] htc6500uk:
Returned the Xoom - Keeping the Asus Transformer

From experience of using both....

Just to clear up a few things in previous posts from people who may have had one or the other and who were relying on hearsay from others.

These are my personal opinions and I am not a fan-boy of any particular manufacturer.

There is no Film Editor app with the Asus Transformer - I found it rather sluggish on the Xoom.

The Asus Transformer comes with a few extras apps such as Polaris Office and MyNet which can browse/stream via WiFi. The Xoom also comes with QuickOffice.

Both have b/g/n WiFi and seem to perform identically.

Both have GPS and seem to perform identically

Asus is plain Honeycomb 3.0.1 although there are a couple of optional widgets available and a Live Wallpaper.

The Asus has an inbuilt screencap function which the Xoom does not.

The Xoom has an inbuilt flash for the rear camera - the Asus does not

The Xoom has a charging/notification indicator - the Asus does not

Battery life of both machines seems very similar - charging time also very similar

Neither has the "Latitude" widget but both have maps/latitude/navigation

The Asus is marginally bigger (due to a bigger bezel) than the Xoom but the Xoom is heavier. Both feel well built and solid.

The Asus transfomer has toughened and scratch resistant "Gorilla Glass" - no such claim by Motorola

The card slot on the Asus works whilst the one on the Xoom is still waiting for a Honeycomb update - no official news/timescale from Motorola. It has been said that Asus have performed a "kluge" to get the card slot working. If this is the case then I assume that it can be "un-kluged" when Google produce the amended Honeycomb code that Motorola state is required to enable their card slot.

Both the Xoom and the Transfomer have "proprietory" charging connects although both can be "trickle" charged from a standard USB port.

The Xoom has inbuilt onboard USB connectivity whereas a short lead that also does the charging is supplied with the Asus Transformer.

The display on the Asus seems sharper and clearer than on any Xoom I have seen. I say this as I believe the Xoom has used two different displays in the initial batch of manufacture. It is said that the viewing angle is far greater on the Transformer "Retina" display but, as others have pointed out, most people are looking pretty "straight on" to the screen. I have not experienced any of the "screen bleed" mentioned.

Both the Xoom and the Transformer are based on the same hardware "reference" design. Only the physical design/layout/buttons/connectors are different.

As the Transformer I have is a WiFi only model, I don't know where the subsequent Transformer model with 3G will have a SIM slot. The Xoom 3G would be a pain changing the memory card (when the slot becomes functional) as the slot is shared with the SIM adaptor.

The web browser User Agent in the Asus Transformer is supplied defaulted to "Desktop" and is easy to change without having to resort to the "debug" fiddling in the Xoom.

I think that's about it apart from a few general observations that apply to both machines and are probably more related to Honeycomb.

Honeycomb was generally very responsive on both machines but it is a shame that Google did not incorporate some functionality the end users would instantly perceive as an advantage over a stock un-jailbroken iPad.

1. Media playing is pretty limited. A large screen device is almost certainly going to be used as a media player at some stage or other - this was obviously recognised with the inclusion of the hdmi port. The processing power of these Honeycomb tablets is more than enough to deal with just about any media format thrown at them but they just baulk at anything faintly exotic like a 264 MKV file. Archos managed tp play almost anything in their 5" Android tablet over a year ago yet this versatility is missing in Honeycomb.

2. Research shows that many people use tablets in the home as a web browser rather than use a desktop PC or Laptop/Notebook. The lack of a native way to save an entire web-page or print it is a significant omission from Honeycomb.

3. A native way to browse to and from a local PC network via WiFi should be a stock Honeycomb feature. Sophisticated directory/file copying/comparision should be a native function.

4. A native screencap should have been included in Android although Asus seems to have fixed this particular omission.

Whilst some of the above omissions can be worked around by using apps that may or may not necessitating "rooting", it seems that Google has missed out on a number of features that could have been "iPad killers" had they been native to Honeycomb.

Let's all hope that some of these features are added/amended sooner rather than later to Honeycomb whatever we choose as our preferred hardware.