Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 (32GB) - CNET

The good: The Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 feels like an amalgamation of all our favorite Android tablets of 2011 and is endowed with 4G LTE compatibility from Verizon.

The bad: The on-contract price will make you cry, the off-contract price will make you laugh.

The bottom line: The Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 is a premium Android tablet from the company that defined the category, held back by a high price and uninspired design.

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Motorola kicked off 2011 with the world's first Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) tablet, the Motorola Xoom. In its wake we witnessed a flood of imitators, and eventually a handful of thinner, brighter, more innovative tablets.

With the Xyboard 10.1 and its smaller sibling, the Xyboard 8.2, Motorola is revisiting the same formula it used for the original Motorola Xoom. By combining high-end hardware with Google's latest tablet-optimized Honeycomb software and Verizon's high-speed mobile network, Motorola could have another hit on its hands.

But will Motorola's recipe for success still work in a time when $199 tablets dominate the headlines and the market is flush with contract-free Honeycomb options? Let's take a look.

Pricing and models
The Motorola Xyboard is an expensive tablet. Purchased through Verizon, the Xyboard is available for $529 (16GB), $629 (32GB), and $729 (64GB), with a two-year commitment to a 4G data plan. These plans start at $30 for 2GB of monthly data. Over the course of two years, the cost of the data plan adds up to $720 plus applicable fees (such as a $35 activation charge). If you try to bail before your contract is up, the early termination fee is up to $350.

If you go with a pay-as-you-go plan, like the iPad's, you'll pay an extra $170 for the device, making it $699 for the lowest-cost 16GB model.

To save some money, you could go with Motorola's smaller Xyboard 8.2, which starts at $430 with a two-year contract. Unfortunately, Verizon's terms and fees are no less onerous.

And what do you get for the money? Well, the Xyboard isn't the fastest tablet we've seen, nor the thinnest, the lightest, the brightest, or the longest-lasting. Arguably, the best thing the Droid Xyboard has going for it (aside from its catchy name) is Verizon's 4G network compatibility. If you feel the need for mobile speed, and you have the money to support your habit, then by all means indulge yourself.

Design
The first thing you're bound to notice about the Xyboard is its clipped-off corners, which give it a more octagonal look. It's a subtle thing, but it does help to distinguish it from the sea of rectangles floating out there.

Like most tablets running Android 3.0 and up, the Xyboard keeps all of its navigation on its 10.1-inch screen, leaving the bezel free from any buttons. Above the screen you'll find a Motorola logo off to one side and a 1.3-megapixel camera in the center.

Flip the Xyboard over on its belly and you'll find a 5-megapixel camera with an LED flash. Both of the Xyboard's cameras are capable of recording 720p video. Two integrated speakers are also on the back, along with power and volume buttons and a door concealing the tablet's SIM card and microSD memory slot.

The top edge of the Xyboard holds a 3.5mm headphone jack and a Tic Tac-sized window for the built-in IR blaster, which enables the tablet to act as a remote control. On the opposite end you'll find a Micro-USB port for charging and syncing, as well as a Micro-HDMI port for mirroring content on your TV. A charging adapter is included with the Xyboard, but the device is capable of charging (very slowly) over a USB connection to your computer.

Tested spec	Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1
Maximum brightness	411 cd/m2
Default brightness	172 cd/m2
Maximum black level	0.34 cd/m2
Default black level	0.14 cd/m2
Default contrast ratio	1,228:01
Maximum contrast ratio	1,208:01

Overall, the Xyboard 10.1's design feels solid and thoughtful, with echoes of the Motorola Xoom. Hopefully this time around Motorola will have more than a month of sales under its belt before another tablet steps in with a radical new trendsetting design. Then again, with theConsumer Electronics Show 2012 coming less than a month after the release of the Xyboard, it could be that the Xyboard is cursed to repeat the Xoom's fate. At least this time around, the4G comes baked in.

Hardware specs
Inside the Xyboard 10.1 Motorola is using a 1.2GHz dual core processor from Texas Instruments, backed with a full gigabyte of system RAM. On paper, this sounds like an improvement over the 1GHz dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processors used in most Honeycomb tablets, but I really didn't feel the difference in terms of navigation or overall system responsiveness. In fact, I encountered a handful of surprising application hang-ups, but these things typically get ironed out with software updates.

It's also worth noting that the Xyboard's hardware configuration will be eligible for an Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) update in the future. Considering Google's stake in Motorola, one would hope that the software update will be fast-tracked.

Beyond processing, all of the expected premium capabilities are here, including assisted GPS, digital compass, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, 802.11 a/b/g/n, and even digital pen support.

Software
Motorola also throws everything in when it comes to software. Business-minded users will appreciate the preinstalled apps for Citrix, Fuze Meeting, GoToMeeting, Polycom, and Quickoffice HD. The fun-loving will be happy to see Netflix, Blockbuster, Slingbox, and Madden NFL 12.

Fortunately, Motorola and Verizon have done little to obscure the pure Android 3.2 experience. The only branded software on the home screen is MotoCast, an app that enables you to stream or download media to your tablet over the air from your home computer. Verizon's app store and navigation software also come included, but are easy enough to ignore.

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10 Ways Android Beats The iPhone 5 Hands Down

Apple may have mollified the masses by adding significantly better specs to its smartphone offering, but when it comes to innovation, the iPhone 5 just can't compete with the latest Android handsets. Sure a larger screen, 4G LTE support and a faster

Apple may have mollified the masses by adding significantly better specs to its smartphone offering, but when it comes to innovation, the iPhone 5 just can’t compete with the latest Android handsets. Sure a larger screen, 4G LTE support and a faster CPU are welcome additions to the world’s number one phone, but Apple is a year late and $199 short, because Android has provided all these features and more for some time now.

In fact, even after Apple’s johnny-come-lately improvements, Android phones have a number of key advantages over the iPhone 5.

Screens larger than 4 inches

Apple may be patting itself on the back over its move from a 3.5-inch to a 4-inch display, but in the smartphone size race, the iPhone 5 trails the field by a wide margin. In the Android world, the 4.3-inch Droid RAZR M is considered a "compact" phone, the 4.8-inch Galaxy S III is mainstream and the 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II is large.

Why would you want a phone with a larger screen? A larger display makes videos more exciting, text easier to read, and keys on the keyboard easier to target with your finger. And if for some reason that doesn't appeal to you, the Android ecosystem also has smaller phones.

NFC support

If you own an iPhone 5, you can just forget about using mobile payment systems that let you touch your device to a reader in order to conduct a transaction. Instead of MasterCard's Tap and Pay, you'll be using tap and pray as you rap your fingers on a table and hope that Apple provides NFC support on the iPhone 6 in 2013.

With NFC support, the latest Android phones can not only send out payments, but also share photos, contacts, videos and more, just by tapping their backs together. Since Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the OS has built-in NFC sharing software called Android Beam that any third party application can use for seamless sharing. Task management app Any.Do even lets you beam assignments to friends and family. I'm sure Apple will add this functionality just in time for iOS 8.
custom widgets

Custom widgets on your home screen

Congratulations iPhone 5 users! You now get an extra row of icons that you didn't have with the iPhone 4 and 4S. That means you can see your TweetDeck icon and tap on it without scrolling over. The Times Square billboard writes itself: "iPhone 5: Now with More Icons!"

However, if you use any Android phone, you get more than just a static set of application icons on your 5 to 7 home screens. You have a working desktop you can fill with interactive widgets that show everything from the weather to your latest social media updates. I particularly dig the circles widget that Motorola includes on its Android phones, which shows you battery life, time, text alerts and local weather.

A micro USB port rather than a proprietary connector

If you're like me, you have a drawer full of USB cables and, if you can't find one, you can always buy another on any street corner. When you upgrade from an old phone to a new one, you can still use the same old wires and charging plugs, because micro USB is a standard. In fact, the European Union requires phone manufacturers to use micro USB for charging, because it reduces waste as users hold on to their old cables rather than tossing them in a landfill.

Unfortunately, the iPhone 5 uses a proprietary connector it calls "Lightning" instead of standard micro USB, but gets around the EU regulation by offering an adapter.Why not just use micro USB like every other company? Then you couldn't make a mint selling proprietary wires and making every iPhone 4S owner that upgrades buy new accessories, because older iPhones had an even larger proprietary dock connector.
third-party keyboard.

Third-party software keyboards

With the iPhone 5, you can have any keyboard you want as long as its the stock iOS 6 keyboard. If you're using Android and you don't love Google's default layout, you're free to install a third-party keyboard that suits your needs.

Some of the best Android keyboards include Swype, which lets you create words by tracing between letters on the keyboard, and SwiftKey, which predicts the next word in your sentence to save you keystrokes. Heck, you can even buy an Android slider like the Motorola Droid 4, which has a real physical keyboard.

Attach any files you want to your email

Apple doesn't gamble on immature technologies so perhaps its understandable that the company has yet to include this new-fangled thing called "email attachments" on its iPhone 5. While previous versions of iOS Mail didn't even present you with any attachment options in its message composer, the new iOS 6 mail on the iPhone 5 gives you the option to attach images or video only.

What if you need to send your boss a PowerPoint presentation, a Word doc or some other type of file? You will need to have an app that opens that kind of file, go to that app and send the file from there. In other words, there's no way to simply attach the file(s) of your choice when composing email in iOS mail. There are workarounds and third-party apps that address this problem, but Apple's approach here could not be lamer.

Just like Windows or Mac OS, Android allows you to attach any files you want to any email message. Whether you're using the Gmail app, its stock email app or any of a dozen third party email clients, there's always a prominent attachment option on the composition screen and, when you hit it , you're able to browse your gallery, your file system or any other apps you've installed that organize files (Dropbox, Quickoffice, etc).
sharing Android iOS

Share using any service you want

With Android, every relevant app from the browser to the photo gallery includes a share button. When you tap share, you're given an extensive and universal list of apps you can share with. And that list grows, depending on what software and services you have installed, from Facebook to your SMS messenger to Bluetooth transfers. So if, for example, you join Pinterest and install its app, you can share directly to that from any app with a search button.

Rather than providing you with one share list to rule them all, the iPhone 5 lets each app developer create his or her own share menu, which has a finite list of services that developer feels like supporting. The default Safari browser and iOS photo gallery apps can only share to Facebook, Twitter, email and messaging. Google, Flickr, Pinterest, Google Talk and any of 100 other services need not apply.
Android file system

Visible file system

Try plugging an Android phone into your PC and mounting it as a storage device. You'll have access to all the files and folders, just as you do when you browse through your WIndows computer's C drive. So, if you want to copy a raft of MP3s or PowerPoint presentations to your Android handset, you can just drag and drop them.

Say you record a memo with Droid Record and want to grab its output files. You can navigate down to its folder and move, copy or share them directly from there. If you run a file browser on the phone itself, you can also dive into the file system from there.

So what happens when you plug the iPhone 5 into your PC? You get access the digital camera (DCIM) folder only so all you can do is drag and drop pictures. Yes, you can iTunes to transfer media files back and forth, but you still can't go directly into file system because Apple just doesn't trust you enough to let you see the folders on the iPhone 5 that you bought from them. Whose phone is it anyway?

Haptic feedback

Most Android phones offer optional haptic feedback, which allows you to get a nice tactile vibration when you type, long press on the screen or tap the navigation buttons. While some people dislike haptics, the vibrations give you a strong acknowledgement that your touch has registered so you don't have to tap twice. Unfortunately, with the iPhone 5, you don't have a choice; just a flat screen that provides no feedback.

Laptop Pen support

"If you see a stylus, they blew it," Steve jobs famously said of pen-enabled computing and, like its predecessors, the iPhone 5 does not support pen input. Yes, you can get third-party capacitive styluses that will work on the iPhone 5, but these little sticks do nothing more than give you a thinner finger.

Want to scribble down some notes like you do on paper? On Android, you can. Samsung's Galaxy Note and LG's Intuition both offer large screens, active styluses and deep pen integration into the operating system.

On the upcoming Galaxy Note II, you can hand write notes on your calendar, on the backs of JPGs and in half a dozen other places throughout the OS. You can even get previews of emails, photos and videos by hovering the Galaxy Note II's stylus slightly above the screen.

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Motorola Droid Razr Maxx 4G LTE 32GB Android Phone Unlocked Specs Black Review

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With a retail price much lower than those higher-priced recent Android phones which offer inferior battery life and data storage, the Motorola Droid Razr MAXX Android smartphone is arguably one of the best bargains on the entire Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network. No current 4G smartphone delivers more out-of-the-box, user accessible data storage space than the Droid Razr MAXX. And no one comes close to the 21.5 hours of talk time or 15 hours of video playback offered from a single charge of the handset’s battery.

The Motorola Droid Razr Maxx is on sale now starting at $99.99.

With a sub-$100 price tag on contract currently, the handset also benefits from optional Motorola accessories which transform the Android smartphone into a 10.1 inch laptop, desktop PC or multimedia center, and hands-free, in-car GPS device. The Droid Razr MAXX 4G also delivers interior hardware which is protected by a splash resistant layer of nano coating, a display protected by a scratch and chip resistant layer of Corning Gorilla Glass, and a rugged Kevlar and aluminum coated body.

With 32 GB of user accessible data storage available out-of-the-box, in the form of a 16 GB microSD card and an additional 16 GB built into the handset, the Motorola Droid Razr MAXX 4G owner has plenty of room for data and applications. The handset also offer simultaneous voice and data access on Verizon’s 4G LTE system in the United States, which was deemed the fastest and most reliable 4G network among all four US major wireless carriers by independent reviewer RootMetrics.

The handset debuted on January 26 of this year, delivering speeds up to 10 times faster than the Verizon Wireless 3G system. Borrowing the skinny motif of its slimmer twin, the Motorola Droid Razr 4G, the handset measures only 0.35 inches (8.99 mm) in thickness. The Super AMOLED Advanced screen runs 4.30 inches and delivers above average pixel density, at 256 pixels per inch. That results in an overall display resolution of 540 x 960 pixels, and standard capacitive, multitouch gestures are used to navigate the handset.

In the hardware package on board, the extreme battery life comes from a 3,300 mA cell, and a Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 microchip package is used to handle your requests and operations. That chip set is centered around a dual core 1.2 GHz Cortex A9 processor, and a separate PowerVR SGX540 GPU handles all graphics processing. 1.0 GB of RAM system memory is on board, and the rear facing 8.0 megapixel camcorder provides video capture at 1,080P HD resolution.

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