Motorola confirmed that the Wi-Fi version of their Android 3.0 tablet, the XOOM, will be coming to retail stores on March 27th. The price of $600 is right on the money from what CEO Sanjay Jha mentioned just a few weeks back and should be quite popular. We’ve heard more than a few people tell us that they have been holding out for this version and plan to buy it later this month. Everything remains the same as the Verizon branded model save for the lack of 3G radio. Pick one up from Amazon, Staples, Walmart, Best Buy, RadioShack and other outlets less than two weeks from now!
Motorola Mobility Brings MOTOROLA XOOM™ Wi-Fi To United States
Innovative new tablet experience to be available from more than seven leading retailers nationwide
LIBERTYVILLE, Ill., March 16, 2011 /PRNewswire/ – Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. (MMI: 23.46 0.00 0.00%), today announced the upcoming availability of MOTOROLA XOOM™ Wi-Fi edition from leading retailers across the United States starting March 27. Amazon.com, Best Buy, Costco, RadioShack, Sam’s Club (select locations), Staples and Walmart will be offering the 10.1-inch widescreen HD tablet with Android™ 3.0 (Honeycomb) through both online and retail store channels. The MSRP for MOTOROLA XOOM Wi-Fi with 32 GB of memory will be $599.
“MOTOROLA XOOM is a truly innovative tablet – its design, coupled with being the first tablet to have Android 3.0, results in a user experience that is one-of-a-kind,” said Dan Papalia, vice president of retail sales for Motorola Mobility. “We are now continuing to expand the choices available to consumers with the MOTOROLA XOOM Wi-Fi to be available soon from numerous leading retailers in the United States.”
In addition, the MOTOROLA XOOM Wi-Fi will be available to commercial IT channels and regional retailers through a distribution agreement with Synnex Corporation, and regional carriers through Brightpoint, Inc.
MOTOROLA XOOM showcases the innovations of the Honeycomb user experience – including widgets, true multi-tasking, browsing, notifications and customization – on a 10.1-inch widescreen HD display, enabling video content that’s richer and clearer than ever before. With a 1GHz dual-core processor and 1 GB of RAM, MOTOROLA XOOM delivers exceptionally fast web-browsing performance. The latest Google Mobile services include Google Maps 5.0™ with 3D interaction and access to more than 3 million Google eBooks and apps from Android Market™. MOTOROLA XOOM also supports a Beta of Adobe® Flash® Player 10.2 downloadable from Android Market, enabling the delivery of rich Flash based web content including videos, casual games and rich Internet applications.
As the first device running Android 3.0, MOTOROLA XOOM benefits from our aggressive work with developers across the ecosystem through MOTODEV, Motorola’s developer support program to enable world-class tablet and smartphone experiences. These devices will be able to access more than 150,000 applications within the Android Market as well as the rapidly increasing number of applications optimized directly for the Android 3.0 OS. In addition, thousands of Flash-based web applications and sites will become available for the MOTOROLA XOOM.
As a part of the company’s commitment and leadership — along with Google’s — to the Android ecosystem, Motorola announced a series of global developer events in 11 cities across North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia. These MOTODEV events give developers access to tools, support and Motorola’s team of Android experts. The first of these events was hosted in San Francisco on March 1 and had more than 665 developers in attendance.
MOTODEV also recently announced a new testing and certification program for Honeycomb applications, encouraging developers to submit their applications to get early feedback and support on MOTOROLA XOOM performance. This is a part of the company’s ongoing commitment to supporting the ecosystem in delivering high quality experiences to the consumer.
More information about MOTODEV tools, resources and events can be found at http://developer.motorola.com.
About Motorola Mobility
Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. (MMI: 23.46 0.00 0.00%) fuses innovative technology with human insights to create experiences that simplify, connect and enrich people’s lives. Our portfolio includes converged mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets; wireless accessories; end-to-end video and data delivery; and management solutions, including set-tops and data-access devices. For more information, visit motorola.com/mobility.
MOTOROLA and the Stylized M Logo are registered trademarks of Motorola Trademark Holdings, LLC. Android, Google, Google Mobile and Google Maps are trademarks of Google Inc. All other product and service names are the property of their respective owners. © 2011 Motorola Mobility, Inc.
Seeing as this comes out just over a week after the promised Mar. 18 deadline for Flash, if they want to sell this as a better device than the iPad 2 to the normal consumer it had better be shipping with Flash pre-installed (and upgradable from Market), a working SD card and a honeycomb update to fix the many software bugs would be much appreciated as well.
I’m definitely returning my 3G Xoom for this the day it comes out. I was never interested in having 3G/LTE on it since I can just tether to my phone the very few times I will be using it without WiFi available.
yes, upgrading to 4.3 screen with a dual core cpu android phone that fits in my pocket at the same price will remove any desire for a tablet :) but I hope there will be many affordable choices at 7″ with built in camera for using in the car as GPS / media system I can tether with my phone.
The price in UK seems te be 600 GBP for the 3G version @ Carphone Warehouse. Source: http://www.motorola-xoom.co.uk/
We could not be any happier with the two Xooms we purchased in March. Great graphics, super speedy crystal clear fonts and superb color fidelity.