What To Know Before You Buy An Xoom (4/5/2011)

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So your on your way to the Verizon store to pick up a flashy new Xoom tablet, but before you blow $599 or $799 there are a few thing root and non root users should know.

Before you head out to grab ur self one of these 10in Dual Core beasts you should know:

*You will not have the V-Cast market so if you pay for TV apps like I do one the ThunderBolt 4G you will not be able to use them.
*There is no offical or working Netflix app and if you have a Account with them you will not be able to stream movies using the browser.
*Blockbuster app dose not support our screen size or Android 3.0

So what dose this mean your thinking? You will not be able to watch TV or Movies on Xoom!
I know it hurts but there's more.

So your thinking humm the Samsung Galaxy Tab supports swype so at least that's something good I have to look forward to right.
Oh so wrong Swype dose not support swype Yet. I don't know if they will support xoom later but as of now no swype.

There is no SD Card support yet but an update to 4G LTE is sopose to enable this.
Motorola is not finish with the 4G update yet but when they are your gonna have to mail the Xoom back to Motorola for the software and hardware update. Although Motorola will pay for the shipping and handling your gonna have to go Six days with out you Xoom while they update it. It could be longer depending on shipping. Motorola claims they will not deny the update to root users but if they can not install the software they will send it back with just the hardware update. I myself will be unrooting anyway before I Send it back.

Oh yea and no SD card support means no coustme recovery.img.
That means we will have very limited development for a while and only development that don't require flashing such as kernels will be created as of now. But don't worry guys when HTC release the flyer tab we will have the sense for tablets ported by me.
So lets just hope we have a recovery by then.

Also I wouldent expect Souce code to be released until sometime after the update for obvious reasons.
So if your still making ur way to buy this device know what what your getting and getting into.
Over all it is an amazing device.


-Jaywan



Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App

All valid points, on the point of Swype, I don't use the "Swype" feature but surely something like this is preferrable:

http://technabob.com/blog/2011/02/06...for-honeycomb/

That looks like more of a Tablet keyboard.

Originally Posted by alias_neo

All valid points, on the point of Swype, I don't use the "Swype" feature but surely something like this is preferrable:

http://technabob.com/blog/2011/02/06...for-honeycomb/

That looks like more of a Tablet keyboard.

even that's better then what we have now

Originally Posted by Jaywan

even that's better then what we have now

WHat's the current keyboard like? I'v not seen the HC keyboard yet.

Standard Google Keyboard...

Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App

Originally Posted by Jaywan

Standard Google Keyboard...

Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App

Well the Ginerbread one is pretty nice, I use it on my Galaxy Tab and Desire, never found a keyboard I like as much. Aside from the size of the screen (i'm not sure it it fills or is centered?) what's the problem with it?

Smart Keyboard Pro is looking pretty good and working alright so far on my Xoom. To get it to work properly you will have to change the key height to the highest setting.

This is how it looks when first installed...


This is how it looks after maxing out the key height...


Plus it has a lot of skin options because it uses better keyboard skins. Still needs to be updated to honeycomb. The keys may still be a tad smaller when compared to stock.

I use smart keyboard pro on my mytouch 4g and love it. But the best keyboard for the xoom is the thumb keyboard. I use it on my streak 7 and zoom. I have tried tablet keyboard, smart keyboard pro, swift key beta and I really like the thumb keyboard best

Originally Posted by graffixnyc

I use smart keyboard pro on my mytouch 4g and love it. But the best keyboard for the xoom is the thumb keyboard. I use it on my streak 7 and zoom. I have tried tablet keyboard, smart keyboard pro, swift key beta and I really like the thumb keyboard best

Agreed. Thumb Keyboard is the best for Xoom in my opinion.

thanks for pointing this out, I have a gTab all custom rommed to hell and was considering getting a Xoom but I couldnt imagine not having roms to flash