Hasta La Gadget!

Verizon’s Motorola Xoom 4G upgrade guidelines. Image: Droid Life

The Xoom tablet has a respectably fast Verizon 3G connection, but Motorola promises a free upgrade to Verizon’s faster 4G network within a few months.

To do that, however, you’ll need to ship your Xoom back to the manufacturer for more than a week.

It’s not often I laugh out loud when researching a post, but when reading up on the Motorola Xoom 3G to 4G upgrade procedure, I sounded like barking dog. If anyone has ever designed a more convoluted, ridiculous way to rush an unfinished product to market, I have yet to see it. But more on that in a moment.

Of course, you can buy Motorola’s Android 3.0–powered, 3G-enabled Xoom today. The promised upgrade to 4G is now slated for May (officially “90 days after launch”), and the upgrade involves shipping the tablet back to Motorola (also free) and waiting up to six business days (translation: more than a week). This despite the fact that the Xoom is clearly designed for easy upgrades, and the upgrade procedure probably takes no more than 10 minutes.

For customers who are happy to be without their tablets for a while, this is clearly good news: You get a free bump to use faster 4G networks. It’s good for Verizon, too, as you might sign up for a 4G plan (although you don’t have to). But for Motorola it’s plain dumb.

I don’t know how much it costs to pay for two-way shipping, opening up a tablet and replacing a part, but I can bet it isn’t cheap. After all, there’s a reason that replacing gadgets is often cheaper than repairing them. Add to this the fact that Motorola will have cut profit margins to the bone to compete with the iPad, and I can see this stunt losing the company a lot of money.

So why do it? Why not wait until it is ready and launch it in the summer? Two words: iPad 2. The iPad 2 will be here in April, and maybe even as early as next week, at which time many of the Xoom’s “advantages” will disappear. If our guesses are right, the Xoom’s camera and fast processor will no longer be unique, and the only extra will be 4G, aka “the ability to connect to a fast but sparsely deployed data network.” It seems rather obvious that Motorola was absolutely desperate to get its tablet out the door before Apple makes it irrelevant.

So, want to hear about what had me chuckling? Take a look at the “Getting Ready Guide” for the upgrade. Sandwiched in the middle is rather huge section on backing up your data before sending it off to Motorola. It boils down to this: Connect your Xoom via USB, dig down through its file system and then copy (via drag and drop) the files and folders onto your computer.

Then, when your machine is finally returned after surgery, you put it all back again. Just the kind of thing Auntie May will find it dead-easy to do.

And that’s before we even get to encrypting the contents to keep it safe in transit (“If you interrupt the encryption process, you will lose some or all of your data”).

Remind me why nobody is buying Android tablets, again?

Motorola Xoom Upgrade program [Verizon via Droid Life]

See Also:

• Motorola Xoom $600 With Verizon Contract, $800 Without
• Motorola Thinks You'll Pay $800 for the Xoom Tablet
• Motorola Xoom Launches Without Flash

Oh yes, the world’s first Android Honeycomb tablet really is here now. As Verizon announced earlier, you can snag a Motorola Xoom for $599.99 with a two-year contract, or splash out $799.99 for just the LTE-ready device. Alas, the WiFi-only version is nowhere to be seen just yet, but maybe some will show up in the stores later if not tomorrow, so hold on to your personal hotspot devices and keep believing. Either way, in case you’re still indecisive over this 10-inch goodness, maybe our review will help.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: Verizon’s been in touch to inform us of a policy change: customers who purchase the off-contract Xoom will now no longer need to be on a month to month plan. That said, we still see “Month to Month” as a compulsory option at the time of updating this post.

Motorola Xoom now available for purchase straight from Verizon, no data activation required (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Feb 2011 23:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola and HP proved that companies can make tablets with UI as usable, if not more so, than the iPad. Now, with the iPad 2 being announced next week, Apple is the one that needs to play catch-up to others. But is it possible without drastically retooling iOS? More »

Motorola hands out gold Xooms to Oscar hosts, nominees originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Xoom spec sheet, Mobile World Congress 2011. Photo Charlie Sorrel

We knew that Motorola’s Xoom tablet was going to cost $800 in its unencumbered, contract-free state, but now Verizon has revealed the price for those willing to sign up for data: $600.

To get that $200 savings, you’ll need to pledge two years to Verizon, at a minimum of $20 per month. For that you get the 3G Xoom and 1GB data. Totting that up over the life of the contract is $600 + (24 x 20) = $1,080. Being Verizon, you’ll probably have to toss in a one-off activation fee, too.

And what about 4G LTE? The Honeycomb-based tablet supports it, after all. The good news is that the upgrade will be free in the “second quarter of 2011″. Maybe it’ll come out at around the same time as Flash is hoped to be ready for the tablet.

The Xoom will be available from Verizon this Thursday, February 24th.

Motorola XOOM Tablet to Be Available on the Verizon Wireless Network on Feb. 24 [Press Release]

See Also:

• Report: Motorola Xoom Tablet to Cost a Hefty $800
• Motorola Thinks You’ll Pay $800 for the Xoom Tablet
• Video: Adobe Air, Flash Demonstrated on RIM PlayBook Tablet …
• Adobe Demonstrates Flash on Android Tablet
• First Look: HP’s Untouchable TouchPad Tablet
• Motorola Xoom Launches Without Flash