[Xoom General] jane999:
I have my Xoom MZ601 since February. I'm absolutely in love with it. I agree, it's little too heavy, especially for a girl. When I have it in my bag and I bend over, it tends to hit stuff around like a hammer, lol. But I wouldn't call it too heavy, unless you use it as an eReader. It could be a little lighter, though.

So here are my observations:

1. The frame is very tough. And I mean VERY! My Xoom got dropped from my mom's lap on the dirty and wet road on exiting the car on the second day I had it. One of its corners is hit and it's little bit deformed. I think it got dropped like 10 times already on different surfaces - it's perfectly fine so far. Ok, I never dropped it from big height, but I'm surprised it survived my ownership for so long. Note, I'm not just trashing it, since it was brand new and expensive at the time, it's just that I use it a lot, carry it around with me all the time and consequently, it tends to fall or hit stuff. Also it tends to get little wet, but I still have my upper protective sheet on, since I have keys and sharp stuff in my bag where it resides.

2. The Android works awesome on it. I was with 3.1, recently it got updated to 4.0.4, everything works great. The 3G signal is very good, the only problem I had with it was Opera now always knowing there's available connection when on 3G, so sometimes I had to reload pages on Unlocking. The WiFi is awesome. I kind of thought there is some internal limit on the download speed, but with tTorrent, I managed to reach 3MB/s so obviously that assumption was wrong.

3. The screen is very responsive, and everything starts swiftly.

4. The touch-capability is also very good. I use it to make notes (among other stuff) and using a self-made stylos, I managed to write almost like on a notebook. The only problem is with the palms touching the screen, but with time one gets used to it. I have pages of notes (on SuperNote) and I'm very happy with them.

5. It's a great tool for reading textbooks - pdf and djvu, but that's pretty obvious.

6. Also, it has a quite good battery (well, I suppose it's worst than the Galaxy, but then, they have different displays). When not under super- heavy use, I charge it every two or three days. I was super surprised, when I first got it on a plane, that I could watch a movie during the whole flight (3 hours) and afterwards, I still had plenty of battery (I compare it with my netbook, which barely keeps on for the flight).

7. It had quite powerful sound, movies also play normally, subtitles work fine, the HDMI cable does what it is supposed to do. The only setback on a non-rooted device is that the screen doesn't turn off when connected to the TV.

8. Now that it is rooted, I love it even more, since I can use it almost as my computer.

Negative sides:

1. The software keyboard coming with the Android seriously sucks. I got it upgraded with a Bulgarian one and now the look is much better, the keys are smaller and everything looks a bit more natural.

2. The Vol Up and Vol Down keys are too difficult for pressing, especially if you have to restart couple of times.

3. There is no way to hard turn off the device while stuck on bootload loop, so the only way to shut it down is to wait for the battery to die.

4. There is no USB-port. Ok, I know there are options, but seriously, USBs are so useful. Also, mine came without a MicroSD card.

5. Absurdly expensive accessories. For example, I still don't have a physical keyboard and stuff. Never tried whether it would work with a normal blutooth keyboard, but I wish I had a small cute keyboard.

6. The internal camera software sucks big time. Also, I miss the camera button.

7. Also I don't like how it cannot charge when connected to the PC.

8. I absolutely hate Google and their apps and obsession with monitoring everything. It's great that there are ways to avoid that.

9. What I really don't like is how the warranty of a hardware device is connected with the software on it. This is deeply wrong, I think the policy with respect to tablets should be the same as with laptops - if it breaks under the warranty terms, they fix it, no matter what OS you decided to use.

Well, these are my thought on the Xoom. As a whole, I'm very positive about it, because it fits most of my expectations and needs. I'm sure there are better options, especially now, but when I was choosing it, there weren't so many and I think it was a great choice. I always wanted to have a Galaxy Tab, but the price was way too high at the time. But I'm quite happy with my Xoom!