[Q]Hardware/software questions about Xoom

[norsairius]

Hey all,

I have a few questions about the Xoom since I'm thinking about getting one (and yes, I am comparing it to the iPad 2).

First off, we've all seen Anandtech's graphical benchmarks of the Xoom. I'm taking those with a grain of salt though because from what I've seen from the Xoom when I've tried it at Best Buy, the Xoom seems to perform perfectly fine.

That said, do you think the Xoom's bottleneck in terms of graphical performance is more on the software end? Or is it more because of the hardware? Right now, I see myself doubting the Tegra 2.

Next, how well does the HDMI video output work? Has anyone tried it directly from the tablet? Or do you actually need the dock (I've read this somewhere) to use the HDMI video output? I assume it's easy to do, right?

I know this has been discussed before, but while I'm here asking questions, I figured I might as well: how's the office productivity with the Xoom? I won't necessarily need apps to edit Word/Excel/Powerpoint documents (though it'd be nice), but to at least view them and perhaps display them via the HDMI out could be very useful for me at work.

Lastly, how have your experiences with the video chat been so far? With Fring (I would like to be able to do cross-platform video chat, specifically with iOS devices since I have friends/family who use them)? Google Chat?

That's all I've got for now. Thanks!

 

[lexian]

I have had the xoom for almost a month. I think the performance is great, but I have no I pad experience other then playing with them in the verizon store.

I like this long battery life, the cameras have been fun though the app support is still lacking. I still can't video skype etc. But I am biased towards android and will wait for the market to catch up.

I have purchased a micro hdmi cable to regular hdmi from microcenter and it works fine, I think it defaulted to 720p. But everything shows up on the screen except for the bottom menu bar. Like the bottom 10 pixels or something.

Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App

 

[svghost]

This is an uneducated guess compared to some of the realllllllllllllly smart people on xda but i think that if you can play games like Samurai II: Vengance in full screen full res the hardware schould have no trouble playing back a video file at that resolution (it doesnt have all that GPU work to do!). So i personally think the issue is software.

 

[khov07]

Hey all,

I have a few questions about the Xoom since I'm thinking about getting one (and yes, I am comparing it to the iPad 2).

First off, we've all seen Anandtech's graphical benchmarks of the Xoom. I'm taking those with a grain of salt though because from what I've seen from the Xoom when I've tried it at Best Buy, the Xoom seems to perform perfectly fine.

That said, do you think the Xoom's bottleneck in terms of graphical performance is more on the software end? Or is it more because of the hardware? Right now, I see myself doubting the Tegra 2.

Next, how well does the HDMI video output work? Has anyone tried it directly from the tablet? Or do you actually need the dock (I've read this somewhere) to use the HDMI video output? I assume it's easy to do, right?

I know this has been discussed before, but while I'm here asking questions, I figured I might as well: how's the office productivity with the Xoom? I won't necessarily need apps to edit Word/Excel/Powerpoint documents (though it'd be nice), but to at least view them and perhaps display them via the HDMI out could be very useful for me at work.

Lastly, how have your experiences with the video chat been so far? With Fring (I would like to be able to do cross-platform video chat, specifically with iOS devices since I have friends/family who use them)? Google Chat?

That's all I've got for now. Thanks!

1. I'm not an expert in this area, but my time with the Xoom indicates that it's a software issue. There are several games available in the market that look absolutely great on the Xoom, and run very smooth without any hiccups. Emulation, which is all done in software, tends to be a good stress-test for hardware. You should see StarFox 64 on N64oid, it's smooth as butter. I have no doubt the software will catch up and in time show off this hardware platform - don't forget there are several tablets being released with very similar specs running Honeycomb.

2. HDMI output works great, it's a full mirror. Just the other day, I was waiting in a building lobby that had a huge Panasonic HDTV hanging on the wall, but there was some issue with the cable TV service. So I took out the Xoom, plugged in the HDMI cable, and fired up some episodes of The Office. Employees walking by were surprised and said "it's about time they got that thing fixed!", not knowing my Xoom was providing the content. Gotta admit, that felt pretty cool.

3. There are plenty of office productivity apps for Android, like Documents To Go. Some are free, and have a paid version that allows you to edit documents as well. As I said before, the Xoom allows for full mirroring via HDMI-out, so this should work for you. I don't to a whole lot of Office-document editing, mostly viewing of Excel, Word, or PDF attachments, which works just fine on the Xoom.

4. I don't use Fring anymore, ever since Skype blocked them, so I migrated to Tango on my EVO, and it works just as well on the Xoom. I've made video calls over 3G on the Xoom, and it works as expected. Really looking forward to a full Skype client. I haven't tried GChat yet.

Hope this helps. Just remember that the Apple vs Google mentality is in stark contrast: Google's stuff is always in development, so the software often needs time to catch up to the hardware, whereas Apple's stuff is ready to go right out of the box. Is Honeycomb incomplete? I'd say yes, but it's already off to a good start.

 

[norsairius]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

Now, do you all think the Xoom may become a "developer device" similar to what the Nexus One/S are since the Xoom runs stock Honeycomb? Do you foresee any issues with installing any future updates that come straight from Google since the hardware runs the stock OS just fine?

Also, have any of you tried emulators like SNESoid on the Xoom yet?

 

[futuregerald]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

Now, do you all think the Xoom may become a "developer device" similar to what the Nexus One/S are since the Xoom runs stock Honeycomb? Do you foresee any issues with installing any future updates that come straight from Google since the hardware runs the stock OS just fine?

Also, have any of you tried emulators like SNESoid on the Xoom yet?

It already is the developer device for honey comb, it's what Google used to show off honeycomb first and it's what Google gave devs early on and gave away at the game developers conferences a couple weeks ago for devs to make games on. it's what nvidia uses to show off demos and games.

 

[norsairius]

Gotcha, well, that certainly increases the longevity of the device!

It would seem then that in my iPad2 vs. Xoom comparison going on in my head, the Xoom is edging ahead.

I'm not a particular fanboy of either Apple/iOS or Google/Android, so this comparison has been tough for me.

So what I've concluded so far then is that the iPad is certainly the more refined and mature product now, but the Xoom is easily more versatile. I have no doubts that the Xoom, with updates, will easily be as good, if not better than the iPad.

And especially given the fact that the Xoom will be able to use updates directly from Google when they come out, the device should have a relatively long and useful life (unless I'm misinterpreting what people are saying around here).

 

[babblin5]

Nope, you hit the nail on the head. the Xoom will have a long and fruitful life from everything I can tell.

I remember when the Macintosh had very few software options, while PCs had EVERYTHING. I see it as the same kind of situation now when comparing the Xoom to the iPad 2. I'm also predicting the same level of success for Honeycomb tablets... just a matter of time!

XoomTech.net