“It promises Moto’s Android tablet will be in stores a couple of weeks from now, decorated with a daunting $799.99 sticker,” Savov reports. “That price agrees with one of our earliest leaks on the matter, purportedly from Verizon’s own systems.”
Full article, with photo of the ad here.
In a companion article, Engadget also reports that Verizon seems to be locking WiFi on Motorola Xoom until suckers buy one month of data service, based on fine print in the ad that reads rather clearly, “To activate WiFi functionality on this device, a minimum of one month data subscription is required.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: DOA. But, Apple likely does thank Motorola for running that nice iPad ad for them during the Super Bowl.
“You made a commercial for the commenters on Gizmodo, none of whom can afford your tablet.”
Best analysis of the ad I’ve seen yet
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The Xoom looks to be an awesome tablet in its own right. I want one. I also really like Motorola’s new Atrix phone – the laptop dock idea is pretty slick. But Motorola really has their head up their rear end when it comes to marketing. $800 for the Xoom. Really!? Like that’s gonna compete with the iPads. Not. I’d prefer the Xoom, but not at the price point — that will drive me to an iPad. Perhaps I’ll wait for the 2nd gen iPad — it will likely be similar or better equipped hardware wise than the Xoom for the same amount of money or less. And it’s a known commodity.
And $500 for that laptop dock (keyboard, battery, screen)!? Heck, that’s 1/2 the price of a Macbook Air and the darn thing doesn’t even have a cpu. What is Motorola smoking? They are cranking out some nice stuff, but it will never sell if they can’t get the price point right.
@ Rick
I agree with some of what you said, I am interested in Honeycomb as well. But at this price, its a non-starter. Its 800 bucks that from a user persepctive the only difference to the $729 ipad is the two cameras. Yes processors are faster, awesome, but what does that buy me, access to Honeycomb? If running honeycomb requires this faster gear than how does that compete with iOS which does not require the faster gear?
So what am i paying for?
And as someone else has stated,all of these Android based tabs are over priced. Android is free a la Google, subsidized by search ads. Why ami therefore paying the same price if not more than the ipad which R&D had to go into to make and is not subsidized by ads based on search?
Xoom. Really bad name. Never give your product a name that customers will be unsure how to pronounce it. And, yeah, the commercial was a complete WASTE for Moto. I agree Xoom = DOA.
@Joe
Well, the hardware is important. It’s not everything, but it is certainly important. The reason is that technology is changing so rapidly. What we expect our gadgets to do today isn’t anywhere near as taxing as what we will expect a similar gadget to do in a year. With 2-year commitments on nearly anything connected to a wireless carrier, it’s important to buy the latest and greatest in order to ensure that it will not be outdated in a year.
My iPhone 3G is definitely showing its age. iOS 4 is just a joke on it — so much so that I went back to 3.1.3. But iOS 4 works extremely well on my wife and daughter’s new iPhone 4s. Bottom line is that my 3G is only 2 1/2 years old and it feels like an antique now. The tablet market is really evolving. Hence, I believe it’s really important to buy something with very current hardware specs. That’s why I like the Xoom, and that’s why I’ll wait for the 2nd gen iPad.
from XOOM, does oe get the pronunciation Zoom?
Shouldn’t that be pronounced “Exhumed”? As in to dig up something old!
Motorola can’t compete so they mimic in a tasteless sort of way. They promote their Xoom for exactly the type of freedom and creativity that the iPad already performs. The tasteless part is their weak attempt to capture the 1984-esque feel which didn’t work at all.
At the end, I was not impressed or even interested and left thinking, “Another iPad clone competitor.”
For years Apple rivals have spent millions educating their customers to look for cheap (see the PC ads) vs Apple.
Now they want them to do a 180 and pay MORE.
good luck with that.
The reason they call it XOOM…
it’s the sound of money being vacuumed out of your pocket.
It seems that no matter how you put it, it all amounts to APPLE WINS!!!
Apple product = Winner
Apple strategy = Winner
Apple = Winner
Until otherwise PROVEN!!!!!
$800 that’s really goof news for Apple. I didn’t really believe Steve Jobs when he said that they had prices the iPad really aggressively. And I still think that the iPad cost allot of money but seeing the price tags on all these other tablets makes me realise that Steve was telling the truth. They have really taken everything they have learned with the iPhone and iPod and applied that to the iPad and that allows them to really keep the cost down. Apple makes everything themselves which in this case is a big advantage. The other companies have to buy parts like the Tegra CPU and pay Nvidia and Nvidia is interested in margins so the cost goes up for every part for the other tablets manufacturers. Apples move to buy their own semiconductor company was genius. They can develop 1 chip and use it across every device saving them the RnD money in a heart beat. The more Apple scale, more products, more devices the more benefit they get from developing their own chip. It’s really fantastic. They are true forward thinkers at Apple.
I always thought there should be a hi-def widescreen version of the iPad. It would be perfect for watching video while traveling. The size factor would be smaller than letter-size, making it lighter than the current iPad.