Motorola Xoom 2 is introduced to the market with lots of improvements over the original Xoom tablet. In this review, we will see how Motorola Xoom 2 is positioned in now-crowded Honeycomb tablet world and whether it has enough hi-level specs to compete Asus Transformer Prime tablet.
First of all, we have a slimmer, more lightweight and faster Xoom as expected. The new tablet is now 0.22 pounds lighter. The new thickness is 8.8mm.
The under-standard screen is now replaced with the Gorilla Glass IPS one. Another improvement is apparent on the cut corners. Its aim is obviously to provide a better feeling at hands (while some claim that it is to secure the tablet from iPad design patent wars while making it unique in style)
The tablet feels very solid at hand and we don’t complain about aluminum construction. The tablet is now water resistant in full.
While the design and overall build and placement of buttons are strategically correct, the tablet lacks expansion slots. This is mainly because everyone is going to the cloud to store the files but we would still wait while the cloud tech matures.
We have speakers at the top and 5MP camera is in the center with the LED flash. We have micro-HDMI and micro-USB ports.
Surely, the new IPS screen (continuing the 1200×800 res level of Xoom 1) provides much more vibrant colors. The screen on the other hand is a magnet of smudges and fingerprints.
The new device has also 5mp camera with auto-focus feature. It generates nice photos and ability to see the photo in full size on the tablet surely is a plus. Now, you can take advantage of Skype video chats so 1.3 mp camera will have great use. On the other hand, video capture at 720p with 30fps sluggish and it is wise to close the other apps before taking video shots.
Motorola Xoom 2 running on 1.2GHz dual core ARM processor with 1GB of RAM surely performs much better than the first Xoom model. Interestingly, it even performed better in web browsing score than quad-core Transformer Prime tablet in according to Vellamo rating. The new Xoom tablet executes apps very fast and loads the webpages very quickly without problems.
Overall, we see lots of improvements on the original Xoom and it would be a nice experience to have this tablet with one condition. Affordable and competitive pricing is needed if Motorola wants serious competition to current Galaxy Tab 10.1 inch tablet and upcoming Asus Transformer.