Motorola Drops Android Tablet Price to Match iPad’s
Motorola reduced the price of its Wi-Fi only Xoom tablet to $500. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
Motorola announced on Wednesday that its Android tablet is now available for a hundred bucks cheaper than before, now priced the same as the entry-level iPad 2.
Originally priced at $600, Motorola’s Xoom tablet is now available for $500 in its Wi-Fi only version. The price reduction was announced via Motorola’s Twitter account, and first reported by The Business Insider.
Motorola’s Xoom was the first device to run Google’s tablet-optimized version of Android, (Honeycomb), beating all other major tablet manufacturers to market with its February release date. Sporting Nvidia’s dual-core Tegra 2 processor, an interface which eschews physical buttons and a fancy black matte finish, the Xoom looked like the tablet to beat in 2011.
The head start, however, doesn’t seem to have worked in Motorola’s favor. Critics of the Xoom denounced Motorola’s high prices right out of the gate — $600 for Wi-Fi only, and a whopping $800 for the Verizon 3G capable version. Compare that to the entry-level iPad 2’s $500 price tag, or even the fellow Android-powered Acer Iconia A500, priced at $450. A $500 base price tag is the predominant standard for the field, originally set by Apple.
It’s unclear whether the 3G-capable version of the tablet will take a price hit, though Motorola’s website shows no change to the price currently.
Verizon Wireless did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The 3G version can be purchased at a subsidized rate, however; a Xoom with a two-year Verizon contract will set you back $600.
See Also:
Droid 2 Global gets Gingerbread, customizable dock and more in latest update from Verizon
Droid 2 Global users, your moment in the Gingerbread sun has arrived. Verizon’s put up a page with download instructions for a 103MB update, taking your QWERTY slider from version 2.4.330 to 4.5.600. Updating isn’t the most taxing of activities, you just look for a system update in the About Phone menu and then give your blessing for the download to commence. VZW will also be prompting tardy users to take their OTA medicine in due course. So what’s new apart from Android 2.3? Well, the big change is that the previously static phone, contacts and apps icons at the bottom of the UI have now been turned into a user-customizable dock, with three links of your choosing sidling up next to the App Launcher. There’s also a freshened up UI look, a Download Manager App, user-definable App Groups, encryption for data both on the device and its SD card, improvements in battery life while using WiFi and Bluetooth, and the obligatory stability fixes. If all that sounds irresistible and you have the requisite phone in hand, go get it!
[Thanks, Jon]
Droid 2 Global gets Gingerbread, customizable dock and more in latest update from Verizon originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Jun 2011 02:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted: June 15th, 2011
at 6:59am by Vlad Savov
Topics: 2.3, Android2.3, Droid2, Droid2Global, Motorola, VerizonWireless, android 2.3, droid, droid 2, droid 2 global, firmware, gingerbread, moto, ota, over-the-air, software, update, upgrade, verizon, verizon wireless, vzw
Verizon Droid Incredible 2 confirmed to be a world phone
It was previously rumored that the HTC Droid Incredible 2 arriving on Verizon would be a world phone (a phone that can work all over the world) and now there’s solid proof of it being a feature of the phone. A recently spotted flyer/poster proudly lists “Global Ready in more than 200 countries” as one of its selling points. Verizon now has one more phone to add to its lineup of world phones such as the Droid 2 Global and upcoming HTC Merge. No mention of a release date or price yet, but it shouldn’t be too far away now. Any takers for this Android world phone?
Verizon Droid Incredible 2 confirmed to be a world phone, By Ubergizmo. Top Stories : iPad 2 Review, Atrix Review,
Posted: April 14th, 2011
at 1:33am by George Wong
Topics: Android, CellPhones, droid, global, htc, incredible, incredible 2, incredible s, verizon, world phone
Motorola Xoom up for in-store pre-order at Best Buy, $800 for Thursday availability
No more stunt prices, no more premature web appearances, this (we hope) is finally Best Buy’s fully official listing for the Motorola Xoom. It brings no great surprises to those who’ve been tracking the tablet’s progress to retail shelves, offering first dibs to buyers willing to lay claim to a pre-order in-store and promising full availability on Thursday, February 24th. The $800 3G-equipped model is accompanied on Best Buy’s site by a $40 portfolio case, a $50 basic charging dock, a $130 stereo speaker dock, and a $70 Bluetooth keyboard, but there’s no sighting of the cheaper WiFi-only Xoom. There was some suspicion that the $600 SKU would launch a little later on and that is indeed what appears to be happening. One final note of caution: even if you’re intending to use the Xoom as a pure WiFi-only device, remember that you’ll be required to activate data with Verizon for at least a month first — don’t ask us why.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Motorola Xoom up for in-store pre-order at Best Buy, $800 for Thursday availability originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Feb 2011 03:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted: February 20th, 2011
at 7:21am by Vlad Savov
Topics: Android, Android3.0, Best Buy, BestBuy, Motorola, MotorolaXoom, Release, VerizonWireless, android 3.0, date, honeycomb, in-store, launch, moto, motorola xoom, pre order, pre-orders, price, slate, tablet, verizon, verizon wireless, vzw, xoom
Gadget Lab Podcast: Verizon iPhone, Hot Spots and The Daily
In this week’s podcast, Brian X. Chen and Dylan Tweney discuss the Verizon iPhone, AT&T’s new tethering and hot-spot features, and News Corp.’s new iPad newspaper.
First up is our review of the Verizon iPhone, which really does have better coverage based on our tests. Suddenly, the iPhone is a phone, Brian says — although when you can get a signal, the AT&T iPhone has much faster data download and upload speeds.
We talk about the Verizon iPhone’s hot-spot feature: For an extra $20 per month, you can share your wireless connection with up to five devices via Wi-Fi. That compares to AT&T’s tethering option, which costs the same amount but only lets you connect one other device.
AT&T now offers a hot-spot feature too, but on an HTC 4G smartphone coming later this month. It has also improved its tethering plan by adding an extra 2GB of data.
We talk about News Corp.’s new iPad-only newspaper, The Daily. It will cost $1 per week or $40 per year. While the content is promising, the app is a little sluggish, and we have some doubts about the business model.
Finally, we talk about how the internet is running out of space. The last IPv4 addresses were handed out this week, and over the next few years, we may see slowdowns and glitches as companies start transitioning to a different version of the internet’s basic protocol.
—
You can listen to the audio-only version of the show here:
Gadget Lab audio podcast #102
http://downloads.wired.com/podcasts/assets/gadgetlabaudio/GadgetLabAudio0102.mp3
Or download the OGG version of Gadget Lab podcast #102.
Like the show? You can also get the Gadget Lab video podcast via iTunes, or if you don’t want to be distracted by our unholy on-camera talent, subscribe to the Gadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Lab video or audio podcast feeds
