[Xoom General] bmangold:
Summary: Honeycomb UI great but buggy

Xoom hardware and build quality feel excellent but the screen isn't what it should be (iPad is better)

Xoom vs iPad vs Gtab ... FIGHT! (The Gtab lost... big time)

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So I left work early with a couple of co-workers to scout out the Xoom. We are all work in technology so we have a pretty good idea of what we want, but we all have different perspectives.

I am the lead Internet Infrastructure Enterprise Engineer for Continental/United Airlines and I own the Viewsonic Gtab, running VEGAn 1.0.0 beta 5.1.1 and the original Droid 1 running Ultimate Droid 3.0.1 (Gingerbread).

Nick, the iPad/iPhone 4 owner with us is a lead Systems Enterprise Engineer who's focus is Enterprise Active Directory with oversight of the Systems Engineering approval process.

Cory was third member of our scouting party and is a Systems Project Engineer whose focus is on consolidation of physical server chassis into Virtual Servers. He currently owns a Droid X, switching to Android from the iPhone 3GS. He and I were looking to potentially purchase the Xoom.

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Our collective impressions:

Positives:

-The Honeycomb interface is more efficient than the iPads adaption of the iPhone UI.

-Xoom hardware felt very solid and reassuring to hold, much better feeling in the hands than a Gtab. It made my Gtab feel plastic-y and bulky.

-You could certainly tell there was a Tegra 2 behind the scenes at work.

-A few of the built in, tablet optimized apps, were refreshing to see on an Android device.

Negatives:

-Screen quality lacked something to be desired, specifically for an $800 device. While it was usable, the nearly year old iPad still had a superior display.

-There is still some work to be done on the software side. The built in browser did not do well at all with large images in websites. ESPN home page was very jumpy and really choked up when zooming in on images, Where as the iPad and my Gtab running Dolphin were relatively smooth.

-The Market is currently lacking many tablet optimized applications, as we all know too well.

-We couldn't determine the sound quality because of an apparent bug. Either the device as 100% volume and very distorted or the sound was off. Changing the volume up or down made no change until you had gone all the way down and the sound turned off.

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From an enterprise support perspective, Honeycomb still has a ways to go before we could deploy Android tablets as a supported enterprise class device. Much for the same reasons that we do not deploy iPads. I hope that they address enterprise class authentication with user control so we can look at deploying these as enterprise devices. A small side note, Continental has both iOS and Android applications for customers to use but we also have in house iPad applications for ticket agents to use in assisting customers. The application is supported on the enterprise but the iPads themselves are treated like a dumb terminal and are not an endpoint on our network.

From a user/consumer perspective, the device certainly has potential but I feel that the price tag combined with the lack of application support and general software polish make this a niche product for uber geeks at best.

Cory did not end up walking out of Best Buy with the Xoom after all. Instead he decided to keep waiting patiently for a tablet that is more refined with a higher quality screen at that price point or to see what software updates may bring in conjunction with a price drop.

I personally will be hanging on to my Gtab for the time being, patiently waiting for a Honeycomb ROM (I'll certainly be donating to the devs who bring it to us)! I would like to see what the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 and the LG tablet bring and/or a sub $500 Xoom option before making the switch.

Edit: Steve Jobs had already informed Nick that he will be purchasing an iPad2... and Nick does the bidding of Steve for he is an iSheep under his watch and care.