Sunday, May 08, 2011

Motorola Xoom:

If you know how to use an Android phone... you won't have any idea how to use a Motorola Xoom.

One example: One of the great things about the Android 2.x operating system for mobile phones is the consistent interface, more consistent than on iPhones and iPads. With Android 2.x, you can count on four buttons being available at all times and always in the same place: menu, home, back, and search. That was such a great idea... that they threw it out with Android 3.0 and the Xoom. Reading a book with the book reader app? The menu button is nowhere to be found. Touch in the upper right area of the screen and the page turns. Except that if you first touch in the middle of a page, a "menu" icon shows up in the upper right area of the screen and touching there then brings up a menu rather than turning the page.

This is the point where I stopped testing out the Xoom. It costs more than an iPad. It works less well than any of the Android phones that I've tried.