[Xoom General] cwizardtx:
Why are people complaining that their Motorola Xoom isn't a phone? I get a real laugh out of the "I'm so pissed because I can't call someone from this device" threads. Texting is another laughable point? Really you aren't carrying a phone around with you at the same time as your Xoom that you can't pull it out for 3 seconds and fire off that txt? One guy wants to know why he can't use his Xoom as a GPS while he's FLYING.

Here is a short list of features that I *love* about the Xoom so far:

- Holy **** the screen is sexy. Playing around with some of these apps on a 10" widescreen is awesome.

- Battery Life - I am charing the thing overnight, picking it up in the morning at 100% and then typically ending the day at 70+% remaining. This is fantastic to me.

- Portability and ease of access - Using my acer netbook was a pain in the ass because I had to wait for windows to load, the desktop to show up... the workspace to be ready. This is instant on and ready.

- RDP works well - I can get into my books from anywhere, generate invoices and e-mail them to a customer right there on the spot. It's impressive and when you're a technology company it just looks good.

- Email support - The exchange support is awesome. The stock mail client could be a little stronger but I am very happy that it supports HTML as the android 2.2 / 2.3 mail client on my Nexus One does not/did not.

- Available storage space - Not having the SD slot isn't bothering me one bit. I would go as far as saying I may not ever even need it. Shipping the product with 32GB of internal storage was the way to go.

- App support - Out of the box, like 90% of my apps worked fine (granted I only use heavily maybe 5 out of the 40 that i have installed). The one or two apps that were missing at launch I've already gotten word from the developers that tablet ready versions or updates are on the way.

- Connectivity - Being a first time Verizon subscriber I am very impressed with the radio and/or 3G network behind it. When my AT&T phone has a **** signal or no signal at all, this Xoom tablet still picks up signal. That's cool to me and is a point that I would like to make separately about the need for the 3G version. Sure, I can tether through my AT&T phone but then I've got two points of failure to worry about.

My thoughts and comments regarding media consumption on this device:

- Music - I haven't had any issues at all. I use Windows Media Player 12 as a part of Windows 7 to manage my music library and it works wonderfully with the Xoom. I sync music to it just like any other generic MP3/music player. I susbcribe to the Zune Pass so actually obtaining music for me is a function I do on my PC, and then just transfer the music as I want or need it. To say that I must be able to download or purchase XYZ song on the road isn't necessary... isn't that what Pandora is for? Use Pandora to listen to what you want until you are in a position to purchase music, then do that. That's how I approach it.

- Videos/Movies - I'm not really a big "watch videos/movies on your portable" guy to begin with. That said, I do like to use youtube to show off certain things like video game trailers or movie trailers or something... but you tube isn't the issue on the Xoom and I don't think ever has been or ever will be. Some people have complained that the Xoom doesn't play the same H.264 videos that they can play on their Droid. To them I say that I'm sorry but your droid isn't running a Tegra 2 chipset. I do agree that the Tegra 2 should be able to handle a lot but I didn't design it.. shrug, what do I know. Seemingly however... the thing plays H.264 just fine if its encoded properly and it looks damn good. I ripped Kill Bill Volume 1 to H.264 with a 2k bitrate and it looked fantastic on the Xoom screen. I will admit that I'm not the best guy to take advice from in this area.

My thoughts / comments on whiners:

- Flash / SD Card Support - I really don't have anything to say about this. Flash 10.2 will be out soon enough and as far as the SD card is concerned I don't even need it. I only have a 4GB Class 6 micro SD card what's that going to do for me? It's laughable in size compared to whats in the unit.. I would only want to put a matching 32GB sd card in and that's gonna be another $100 minimum. Now your $799 device is an $899 device... where's the complaint for that?

- Can't make phone calls / TXT - Jesus christ, go buy a phone.