Motorola’s Xoom “feels very incomplete. A surprising number of promised hardware and software features are not functional at launch and will have to be enabled in future updates. The Xoom’s quality is also diminished by some of the early technical issues and limitations that we encountered in Honeycomb. Google’s nascent tablet software has a ton of potential, but it also has some feature gaps and rough edges that reflect its lack of maturity,” Ryan Paul reports for Ars Technica.
“LTE isn’t the only hardware feature that’s not working right out of the box. The Xoom’s microSD card slot is also non-functional, due to software issues that are attributed to Honeycomb. Motorola says that the feature will be fixed soon in an over-the-air update,” Paul reports. “The Xoom’s much-touted support for Adobe Flash is also absent at launch and will similarly be delivered in an upcoming software update.”
MacDailyNews Take: But, not until initial reviews report battery life figures and cement first impressions. Afterwards, Xoom batteries can be drained at will by Adobe’s archaic Flash (if it decides to work at all).
Paul continues, “Our Xoom review unit was provided by Verizon and came with 3G enabled, so we were able to test it on the company’s EVDO network. Browsing performance was excellent over WiFi and reasonably good over 3G. We had no trouble playing streaming videos or using other bandwidth-intensive features. Although the Xoom performs well, its reliability leaves a lot to be desired. During a week of very heavy use, I had between 5 and 8 incidents of applications force-closing every day. The issue wasn’t isolated to third-party applications—Google’s own software crashed pretty regularly.”
MacDailyNews Take: The perpetual promise of future improvements = Microsoft redux.
Paul continues, “Android in general is not especially robust, but the stability issues I encountered on the Xoom seem worse than the relatively minor stability problems I’ve had over the past few years with my various Android phones. I imagine that the stability problems will be ironed out as Google improves the platform.”
MacDailyNews Take: See previous take. Stockholm Syndrome is insidious.
Paul continues, “Professional Web developers seem to be disappointed with some of the technical weaknesses of Honeycomb’s HTML rendering engine. Sencha’s Aditya Bansod wrote up a particularly scathing critique after evaluating the browser’s performance and standards support. He indicates that the Honeycomb browser falls short of Apple’s mobile version of Safari in some key areas, particularly in its handling of CSS animations. Bansod characterizes the Xoom’s browser as being below production quality and contends that the browser’s rendering engine is simply ‘not ready for prime-time’ on a tablet device… In light of Google’s vocal enthusiasm for using the Web as an application platform, it’s a bit surprising that the company is so far behind Apple in supporting that vision on a mobile device. When I tested toolkits like JQuery Mobile and Sencha Touch on the Xoom, the gaps in the Honeycomb browser’s rendering engine were painfully apparent. Animated transitions stuttered and certain visual elements were not rendered correctly.”
MacDailyNews Take: Disappointed; technical weaknesses; falls short of Apple; below production quality; not ready for prime time; so far behind Apple; painful gaps; stuttering animations; and elements not rendered correctly. Where do we line up, or should we just light $800 on fire and spare ourselves the frustration?
Paul continues, “Google’s ongoing failure to provide decent e-mail support on Android continues to be a major disappointment in Honeycomb. Prospective Xoom buyers who care a lot about IMAP or Exchange e-mail support should probably pass on the Xoom or wait until third-party applications like Touchdown and K-9 have proper tablet interfaces.”
MacDailyNews Take: Email? Who needs email? (smirk)
Paul continues, “The Xoom comes with the standard Google applications, including a calendar and address book that synchronize with the company’s popular Web services. The user interfaces are simplistic, however, and didn’t impress me very much.”
MacDailyNews Take: This is the sort of reviews that a marketing exec dreams of – right after eating a 5-pound burrito and washing it down with half a gallon of rum-spiked eggnog.
Paul continues, “If you are an Android enthusiast and regard e-book reading as an important feature in a tablet, you might be better off getting a Nook Color and modifying it to run additional software.”
MacDailyNews Take: Or, if you’re lucky, you might grow a brain before this Friday and instead hop on line for iPad 2.
Paul continues, “Getting music onto the device wasn’t as straightforward as I had hoped. Most Android phones have limited internal storage capacity and are built with the assumption that the user will store media on a microSD card. The Xoom, however, has lots of internal storage and, at the present time, no working microSD slot. This is an issue because Android typically doesn’t allow the user to mount the system’s internal flash memory as a conventional mass storage device. You can’t just plug the Xoom into a USB port to drag and drop your music onto the filesystem.”
MacDailyNews Take: Music? Who needs music? (smirk) Just use your iPod.
Paul continues, “Google has created a more tablet-friendly version of the Android Market for Honeycomb.”
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, goody, they made the malware dispensary more “tablet-friendly.”
Paul continues, “The large graphical marquee on the landing page gives it a cluttered feeling. It’s especially annoying because it will slide down from the top several seconds after the market is opened, which means it often intercepts a tap by accident when I’m trying to hit something else. Another minor inconvenience is the Market’s lack of support for portrait orientation. When you rotate the tablet, the market remains stuck in landscape mode.”
MacDailyNews Take: Sounds really “tablet-friendly,” huh?
Paul continues, “There is a scant handful of third-party Android applications available today that are a good fit for the tablet form factor.”
MacDailyNews Take: Gee, should we line up for a superior device with a vibrant third-party ecosystem and a well-designed App Store with 65,000+ apps designed for “the tablet form factor” or should we dick around with a “scant handful” while sewing together our own cases?
Paul continues, “The Xoom’s impressive hardware specifications and ambitious feature lineup are intriguing, but the product falls short of its full potential due to a general lack of completeness. It feels like it was rushed to market and delivered to consumers prematurely. The number of headline features that are simply absent at launch is emblematic of the device’s deficiencies… While I was testing the device and studying the documentation, I was confronted repeatedly with disclaimers which explained that various features will arrive later in updates. There are so many of these disclaimers that it soon became absurd. The device, in its current state, is like a parade of promising placeholders.”
MacDailyNews Take: Google. Our Lady of Perpetual Beta. It’s just so Microsoftian. Promises, promises, promises:
Paul continues, “The Xoom’s assortment of absent features will likely all be available this Summer, but the launch configuration feels like a beta release. Consumers who buy it today will have to send it back in for a week at some point before they can get the complete product. I think bringing it to market in this condition was a pretty dubious move… If you compare the Xoom against the iPad 2 today, there isn’t much of a case to be made in favor of the Xoom… If you are looking for the best tablet available today, then look no further than Cupertino.”
Full review here.
MacDailyNews Take: If you listen closely, you might be able to actually hear the peals of laughter ringing throughout the hallowed halls of the palatial MacDailyNews headquarters.
One final word: Bloodbath.
BLOODBATH.
Semi-demi-psuedo-tablet-oid-lite experience.
When Apple released the 1st iPhone, they told us all of the things that it actually did, not even mentioning the potential for apps, etc. When the iPad was released, it didn’t print and wasn’t promised to.
Apple is meticulous to announce features that are working, and omit features — even ones we know are coming — until they are actually on the way (like multitasking and folders for the iPad, after they were already available on the iPhone).
With the obvious exception of the white iPhone 4 boondoggle, a very rare example of vaporware.
Spot on.
Your black Xoom can be turned white later on with a simple software update! It’ll be available in Android 3.7 Mayonaise.
Hilarious!
And hidden in that hilarious remark is that the ‘Mayonnaise” would then be five versions away from today’s Honeycomb (beginning with H; with versions beginning with I, J, K and L in between…). And not necessarily 3.7; the way Google assigns version numbers, it may well be 6.1, and appear in the fall of 2015…
You make me look good… I wish I could say I’d planned that!
Ill take the promise of a color option as vaporware…lol
aw shucks… no white, the sky is falling!
MDN’s ability to properly choose excerpts and interject incisive, funny commentary is masterful.
I agree – I enjoyed this one.
Everything Google makes is Beta. Why should Android Honeycomb be any different?
Brilliant take MDN and spot on. I haven’t laughed this much in a while either!
“rum spiked eggnog”?
I ALWAYS make my eggnog with rum and brandy. If it ain’t spiked with rum, is it actually eggnog?
That said – this review, these MDN takes, sweet music to my Applecentric ears.
Like some wise person said, “if it ain’t chocolate, it ain’t breakfast.”
Even I know enough to get an iPad 2. Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.
Wow, what is up? You have gone from massive supplier of articles for MDN to occasional poster…
Didn’t I see you on an episode of “Ow! My balls!”?
Prez Camacho had me trying to fix the crops, but I doesn’t know nothin’ about no crops. He got Not Sure to do it now, so’s I got some free time agin! Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.
The toilet water really works!
Did you get rewarded with a latte from Starbucks?
What is the deal with Android and RIM when it comes to email? Why can’t they get it together on something so crucial to the tablet experience?
Apple could’ve announce the camera feature of the iPad 1 that would’ve been available in a future update… called the iPad 2. But, then Apple separates itself from the rest by being a reputable company.
Seriously… I’m amazed that anyone didn’t see this coming. Have you ever used a Motorola Razor? Let’s we got Flash-enabled… oh yeah not just yet. We got a SD card slot for expansion… oh yeah not just yet. We got a great Android market place… oh yeah, but few native tablet apps and no real email support outside of Gmail. So why is Xoom an iPad killer? Hmmm…
Death by uncontrollable laughter
Google fails at software. It’s a fact.
However bad Java is, at least it’s tolerable; imagine if Google developed their own enviroment when they can barely glue together glue and put lipstick on it.
this is actually very very significant. It means that Honeycomb is not ready for realease. And the reality is that 2011 WILL be owned by iPad 2.
Steve Jobs was spot on…
If I were a enterprise consultant, looking at tablet devices for deployment, Android would be disqualified from the outset due to privacy and security concerns.
HP’s WebOS and RIM are possible contenders, but are still at 1.0 stage, no proven enterprise apps for tablets, no announced enterprise management tools, etc.
IPad 2 is the only way to go, provided Apple continues to improve, nay, revolutionize enterprise deployment and management. Indeed, I’m sure this is what they’re doing behind the scenes.
Has WebOS or Rim released a product? Then they are not contenders. If Android is disqualified then there is no competition.
Just wait fanboys. It wont be long.
This: “Consumers who buy it today will have to send it back in for a week at some point before they can get the complete product.”
Is a product/company death warrant! If any friend or family showed up with one of these: instantly disowned. You would have to be the world’s most colossal idiot to go anywhere near this walking piece of shit.
Agreed.
Thanks for all the laughs MDN. It’s reports like this that make me believe demand for the iPad 2 will exceed supply all year long – never reaching equilibrium for several more years. I mean is there really any serious credible competitor on the horizon? Not that I can see.
“The Hallowed halls of the palacial MDN headquarters”
The spare room is now the baby’s room and the headquarters is now a corner of the unfinished basement, headquarters. LOL, been there, done that.
Not sure you’re fully grasping MDN’s use of self-referential satire there.
Of course I am. The palace is the mundane place we hang our laptop. We’ve all been there.
“Ars Technica reviews Motorola Xoom: For the best tablet available today, look no further than Apple”
The Title alone makes me smile, and laugh.
Wait ’til the Playbook fanboys. For the same price as the entry level iPad 2, you can have the 7″ Playbook, which you’ll be able to hold with just one hand. That other hand will come in handy for one of three things: (1) holding your blackberry phone because you can’t get email without being tethered, (2) beating yourself over the head waiting for stuff to load because Flash slows everything down, and (3) fondle yourself because it’s the most viable entertainment option. Confucius say “Man with iOS device in pocket touch himself below waste all day.”
All of that great beta software will be available on every Android tablet released in 2011. 🙂 Should be a great year….. for resellers like Gazelle. 🙂
It’s so hard to read the article with all the MDN takess. Sheesh.
The takes ARE the article!.
The fandroids get to pay $800 to be beta testers. And they say *we* drink kool-aid.
Very entertaining. Classic takes. Love this site but need my iPad/iPhone app.
In Android sites you can see spaced out Android fans trying to defend this, Yesterday I read something like this (I paraphrase from memory):
“the Xoom’s release (in an unfinished state) actually shows google’s superiority of Android vs iOS. Apple is an unimaginative uncreative company which doesn’t try to do new things, while Google engineers and designers are creative and daring. When you are breaking new barriers you bound to make mistakes. That’s why Google, Android and Xoom are way ahead of Apple… ”
???
Critics say apple fans have RDF but to me no where to the level of Googlites. They totally seem out of it. Hardcore Google fans seem to come from another age i.e the ‘garage’ computer age of 40 years ago when machines were sold ‘unfinished’ and required the user to solder parts together, debug etc. (How many times have you read “my xyz Android device’s abc function doesn’t work, not a problem, I’ll just root it and hack it!”) Dudes this is 2011 most people just want their devices to ‘work’! ‘Normal’ consumers reading the giddy praise in reviews of Googlites over the Xoom or any Android device beware…
Also most Xoom reviews are not even talking about the MALWARE that lurks on the official Google App Market…
How do you buy a device if you can’t trust the apps?
“How do you buy a device if you can’t trust the apps?”
Ask the millions who buy Wintel devices? Fandroids are cut of the same cloth as Windows adherents – blind, lonely, living in mommy’s basement. However, this is the reason Android tablets will not take off. Wintel along with Android phones have proliferated because of their cheap price points and Android phones have flourished in the US because of iPhone exclusivity up until now. With tablets, because Android can’t match iPad’s price and there is no carrier dependency, Android is dead in the water.
Yeah, I saw the comment you mention.
Sorta like saying how brave and daring Yugo was in producing a car that didn’t run for shit.
Google troll drivel: ~”Apple is an unimaginative uncreative company which doesn’t try to do new things, while Google engineers and designers are creative and daring”~
You have to keep in mind that we’re in a bone fide economic depression (despite hype to the contrary) and many people are desperate for work. That some would have to whore themselves to Google as paid trolls is inevitable. Have pity on them. 😉
If making mistakes equates to innovation, then Microsoft leads the world!
Every company makes mistakes. The difference is that Apple does a pretty good job of fully baking its products prior to release and also enhances their functionality down the road. Very few Apple mistakes make it into the retail space.
Google, the new Rube Goldberg.
Oohh! Does it replace the “user friendly” battery in my sucktablet every 15 minutes when it senses that the screen has turned off because flash (and other assorted goodies) has killed my battery?
What happens if you touch this leve- *crash* oops…..
Diddent xoom win best of show at Winter CES? And this was for a device that was no more than a PMP showing videos of how it would work as some reports stated?
Well as Bone in the Journey to Far Point STTNG..
“It has the right name! ”
Or in this case.. Honnycome as in getting stung if you reach for it…