Personal computing discussed

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Welch
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Motorola Xoom... Oh how I've Longed for Thee!

Fri Apr 29, 2011 12:14 pm

Well I finally did it..... I purchased a Motorola Xoom and so far, I'm damn happy I did.

The Battery life already has been phenomenal to what I expected. I turned the device on without plugging it in at around noon when I bought it. Played with it until about 10:30 at night. Some surfing, some dungeon defenders, music, videos and of course Angry Birds. What started as 75% battery life ended the day 10 hours later as 31%..... Crazy.

Any other Gerbils here take the plunge into the Android Tablet scene?
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aschiro
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Re: Motorola Xoom... Oh how I've Longed for Thee!

Fri Apr 29, 2011 12:56 pm

Purchased a Viewsonic G-Tablet about three weeks ago. It was running 2.2, sluggish/freezes, not at all what I expected, but for the price I was willing to take the chance. Found a link on another board for flashing to a Gingerbread build called Vegan-n. Night and day the difference. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthr ... ?t=1031250 Having a full size USB allows me to hook up a hand scanner for quick work on computer inventory or console cable to cisco routers or switches... This is a dream when working in wiring closets..
 
xtalentx
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Re: Motorola Xoom... Oh how I've Longed for Thee!

Fri Apr 29, 2011 1:07 pm

I was looking to do the same thing as you aschiro. I still might. I don't understand why vendors just don't stick with vanilla android. It seems to always work MUCH better and has to be cheaper to put out than modifying it so heavily.
 
Corrado
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Re: Motorola Xoom... Oh how I've Longed for Thee!

Fri May 13, 2011 7:48 am

xtalentx wrote:
I was looking to do the same thing as you aschiro. I still might. I don't understand why vendors just don't stick with vanilla android. It seems to always work MUCH better and has to be cheaper to put out than modifying it so heavily.


Because then they don't stand out from the rest. If you have 100 white box PC vendors all running windows, which do you choose? The cheapest one that meets your hardware needs, usually. If you put a 'fancy' UI on top of it, it at least looks a little different from the rest.

Not saying its right or they should do it, but I understand WHY they do it. I just wish instead of skinning so much, they'd just write their own launcher and leave the underlying OS alone.
 
TheEmrys
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Re: Motorola Xoom... Oh how I've Longed for Thee!

Fri May 13, 2011 9:26 am

Corrado wrote:
xtalentx wrote:
I was looking to do the same thing as you aschiro. I still might. I don't understand why vendors just don't stick with vanilla android. It seems to always work MUCH better and has to be cheaper to put out than modifying it so heavily.


Because then they don't stand out from the rest. If you have 100 white box PC vendors all running windows, which do you choose? The cheapest one that meets your hardware needs, usually. If you put a 'fancy' UI on top of it, it at least looks a little different from the rest.


Pretty sure most people want what they are familiar with. My wife is very hesitant to move to Windows 7 from Vista because she is used to it.
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Captain Ned
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Re: Motorola Xoom... Oh how I've Longed for Thee!

Fri May 13, 2011 9:29 am

TheEmrys wrote:
Pretty sure most people want what they are familiar with. My wife is very hesitant to move to Windows 7 from Vista because she is used to it.

Which explains why the admin account (i.e. mine) on my daughter's Win7 laptop has a WinXP classic (really Win2K) shell courtesy of Classic Shell.

http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
ludi
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Re: Motorola Xoom... Oh how I've Longed for Thee!

Fri May 13, 2011 11:14 am

TheEmrys wrote:
Pretty sure most people want what they are familiar with. My wife is very hesitant to move to Windows 7 from Vista because she is used to it.

That's an odd concern, I doubt she would notice the difference. The only major UI difference is that Vista runs desktop gadgets in the Sidebar, in Win7 you pin the gadgets right to the desktop. That, and the Win7 version of UAC only jumps up and barks when it really needs to.
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TheEmrys
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Re: Motorola Xoom... Oh how I've Longed for Thee!

Fri May 13, 2011 11:24 am

ludi wrote:
TheEmrys wrote:
Pretty sure most people want what they are familiar with. My wife is very hesitant to move to Windows 7 from Vista because she is used to it.

That's an odd concern, I doubt she would notice the difference. The only major UI difference is that Vista runs desktop gadgets in the Sidebar, in Win7 you pin the gadgets right to the desktop. That, and the Win7 version of UAC only jumps up and barks when it really needs to.


Definately preaching to the choir. :D

I'll get here there when we get her a new laptop. I'm thinking one of the Fusion's, because for her, battery life and cost is king. She could care less about power.
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ALiLPinkMonster
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Re: Motorola Xoom... Oh how I've Longed for Thee!

Sat Aug 20, 2011 1:59 pm

When I used the Xoom at BB it seemed slow as molasses compared to the other tablets. It might just be the way they had the floor model set up. Regardless, i'm more than happy with my Asus Transformer. I wish there was a little more customization for the UI, but the gaming and productivity capabilities are top notch. I'm typing on it right now actually. Even without the dock, it's pretty comfortable. The dock is really what makes this thing shine though.
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SecretSquirrel
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Re: Motorola Xoom... Oh how I've Longed for Thee!

Sun Aug 21, 2011 8:57 am

Pulled the trigger on a Xoom yesterday. It came down to the Xoom or the Samsumg Galaxy 10.1. The Galaxy is a very beautiful piece of hardware and definitely won from an visual point of view. However, no SD card slot killed it. I can't say I noticed much in the way of performance difference between the Xoom and the Galaxy when playing with them. And there really shouldn't be as the are exactly the same hardware under the hood (from a specs point of view).

--SS
 
SecretSquirrel
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Re: Motorola Xoom... Oh how I've Longed for Thee!

Tue Aug 30, 2011 8:26 pm

Posting from the Xoom. So far I really like it's though I've only had a couple of hours with it. Honeycomb takes a bit of getting used to if you are accustom to Gingerbread or earlier. Things are in slightly different places. Screen is very nice. Took about two minutes after I joined it to the wifi for it to detect and pull down the OS upgrades. Two reboot/flash cycles later and all is good. I am not, however, a fan of the changes made to the default calendar app. The event boxes are no longer completely filled with there color. It is just a small box in the upper left. Not really a Xoom issue though.

--SS
 
Welch
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Re: Motorola Xoom... Oh how I've Longed for Thee!

Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:37 pm

Glad you like it :). I did get a chance to use a Galaxy Tab 10.1 and liked how much thinner it was. I did feel that the tab was actually a slight bit faster.... don't ask me why but it did. If using one of the two as a reader, i'd recommend the tab for the weight/size difference. Its just that little bit lighter to make it comfortable over a longer period of time of holding it up.
I also was gifted a Motorola Xoom "Folio". I like the material its made out of, how it protects the device is great. A few issues I have with it.......


1.) Does not like to be folded over like the back pages of a book (The instructions suggest that this is a function that the Folio "supports"). All they needed to do was make the edge thinner or some sort of pre-folded seam so that it folds over like its meant to.

2.) You cannot use the Motorola Xoom docking station for charging or alarm mode... How did they overlook this? Just add a rubberized pull out like you see on some phone ports.

3.) I love the ability to use it as a stand for watching movies/ect. However there are only 3 notches, so sometimes the angles aren't ideal. On top of this the grooves are much wider than the thickness of the tablet so a good little bit of movement and the tablet wont stay in the groove or it moves around while watching movies. Its fine on a flat stationary surface, but when I was on a 6 1/2 flight back from Hawaii the device moved way to much. The solution would be to make deeper, thinner grooves and more of them to allow the consumer more angles to place the device in.


It sure beats the hell out of carrying it around bare or in one of those excuses of a "Cover" the little colored rubberized cases, can't stand those things as they move on the device way to much.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

1600x | Strix B350-F | CM 240 Lite | 16GB 3200 | RX 580 8GB | 970 EVO | Corsair 400R | Seasonic X 850 | Corsair M95 / K90 | Sennheiser PC37x
 
uroojshxe
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Re: Motorola Xoom... Oh how I've Longed for Thee!

Tue Oct 18, 2011 6:14 am

I would love to explore.

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