Hasta La Gadget!

Verizon’s webpage dedicated to the Xoom has just gone up and one of our eagle-eyed readers has already spotted a disquieting bit of small print: “Adobe Flash expected Spring 2011.” You don’t sit around expecting what you already have, so that leads us to conclude that the Xoom, the mighty iPad-slaying, Honeycomb-bringing, world-changing tablet… won’t have Flash at launch. The version of Adobe’s rich media player it’s waiting for is most probably 10.2 for mobile devices, scheduled to arrive in the coming weeks, which should mean first-day buyers this Thursday will get a limited-time premium feature on their tablets: no Flash ads.

[Thanks, Chris]

Update: Motorola has confirmed this, in a very roundabout fashion. The company’s statement in full:

“Motorola XOOM will include full support for Adobe(R) Flash(R) Player(R) for accessing the rich video and animations of the web, to be available after launch.”

Motorola Xoom will ship without Flash support on February 24th, expects it in ‘Spring 2011’ (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 06:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wish you had your Xoom tablet already? Yeah, us too. We can’t get you there, but thanks to Droid Live you can at least pore over every page of the thing’s manual. 64 pages, actually, covering everything from how to turn it on to, well, how to turn it off again. Looking for other excitement? You’ll find a hipster on a bench on page 10, what appears to be Joanna Newsom on page 30, and a disgustingly happy couple on page 33. Oh, and lots and lots of details bout Honeycomb too. Check it out!

[Thanks, Andy]

Motorola Xoom manual now available for download, ready to expose the ins and outs of Honeycomb originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Feb 2011 21:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There you have it, folks — the exhausting saga of the Xoom‘s pricing has finally been laid to rest by Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha. Reuters reports a $799 levy for the 32GB Honeycomb tablet when bought with 3G (which will be upgraded to 4G) connectivity from Verizon sans subsidies, while Jha is also quoted as saying that a WiFi-only version will set buyers back only $600. The latter price matches the 32GB iPad directly, however the 3G Xoom is $70 more expensive than the Apple alternative. Sanjay failed to say when said pricing or models will become available, but there have been strong indications that pre-orders or reservations will begin tomorrow (at least at Best Buy), with the tablet launching in full on Thursday next week.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Motorola Xoom price official: $799 unsubsidized on Verizon, $600 for WiFi-only originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Feb 2011 11:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What the what?! Best Buy has just put up word on when you can pre-order the Motorola Xoom — this coming Thursday, February 17th — and a price, $1,199. There are “great” financing offers available, but we can’t get over this price we’re seeing. Our only hope is that this may be a placeholder number, which will get revised soon, though it’s live on Best Buy’s site and there’s nothing to really indicate it’s a mistake. Moreover, that 1-month data activation requirement we noted recently is indeed real, meaning you’ll need to pay a levy to Verizon as well before you get your Android 3.0 groove on.

[Thanks, Joe and Magid]

Update: We’ve heard rumblings that this is indeed just a place holder — much like the way other companies price products they don’t want to sell at ridiculous levels — and the final price will indeed be the $800 we’ve heard most consistently to this point.

Update 2: Best Buy’s listing has entirely disappeared. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Motorola Xoom up for pre-order at Best Buy this Thursday… for $1,199? (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 13 Feb 2011 06:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At last, the webOS-empowered TouchPad, HP’s answer to the growing tablet market. And make no mistake, it’s coming in with guns blazing — specs-wise, the slate stands up pretty well to the competition currently in play (e.g. iPad) and the other up-and-comers not quite out the gate (e.g. Motorola Xoom and BlackBerry PlayBook). Stacked side-by-side, it’s clear Apple’s entry is lacking a bit in both memory (256MB vs. 1GB for everyone else) and front-facing camera — not that we expect that to be the case for all of 2011. When it all comes down to it, what’ll set these slates apart will be the platforms and software themselves — should make for an interesting summer, no? In the meantime, for the nitty-gritty on technical specifications, venture past the break.

Continue reading HP TouchPad vs. iPad vs. Xoom vs. PlayBook: the tale of the tape

HP TouchPad vs. iPad vs. Xoom vs. PlayBook: the tale of the tape originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Feb 2011 16:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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