First Impressions: Motorola's XOOM tablet

Motorola Mobility was very deliberate with news about its intentions to release a tablet. Back in September, CEO Sanjay Jha announced the company would have a product out in 2011, but wouldn't be rushing it, and then in December the company released something of a "diss" video, denigrating the other popular tablets.

At CES 2011's press day yesterday, the company officially announced its XOOM tablet and showed it off, but clearly didn't have a finished product on its hands. This is likely due to the unreleased nature of the OS it will be running, Android 3.0 "Honeycomb."

So the model we got to handle was simply running demo software showing off some high-def graphical capabilities of the Xoom, rather than anything that would give an example of live processing with its dual-core 1GHz processor, or outputting video from its HDMI port, or even taking pictures with its 5 megapixel rear camera and 2 megapixel chat camera.

All We got to handle was a husk, but at least it gave a feeling of the XOOM's general heft and sturdiness. A number of attendees who handled the device couldn't immediately discern if it was heavier or lighter than Apple's iPad. Motorola didn't disclose the actual weight of the device.

It will be available exlusively on Verizon Wireless later in the first quarter and have a couple of options for onboard connectivity. There will be a Wi-Fi + 3G model, and there will be an external attachment giving it 4G LTE support in the second quarter of 2011. Pricing will be announced at launch, and a Wi-Fi only model was not announced.

The XOOM is obviously close to readiness, but neither Android Honeycomb nor Verizon's LTE network are quite ready enough to have a product running on them together.