The Motorola Droid Xyboard ten.1 and eight.2 tablets pick upwardly where the original Xoom tablet left off. They both offer Verizon Wireless' 4G LTE data speeds, big displays, and a stealth black finish that has been updated to feel better in the hand.

It's regrettable that they run Android 3.x Honeycomb, like the original Xoom tablet that they supplant when Ice Cream Sandwich is literally already here. All the same, every bit far every bit Android tablets become, these two devices are quite capable and aren't hard on the eyes. They are a bit hard on the wallet, though, with on-contract pricing starting at $429.99 for the eight.2 and $529.99 for the x.ane, both with 16GB of storage.

Keep reading to learn what they do well, and what they don't do all that well.

Hardware

The ii Droid Xyboard tablets are very like in overall design and components. Both feature 1280 x 800 pixel IPS touchscreen displays in different sizes, and come equipped with a mixture of soft-touch black paint and gun metallic grey panels on the rear. The 8.2-inch model offers a flake more than rear-panel manner, thanks to some visible bolts, but the overall look of the devices is pretty similar, down to the "cut corners" of their bodies and recessed volume controls and power buttons.

The ten.1-inch model, which is meant to be held horizontally, measures 253.9mm x 173.6mm x viii.80mm (10.0in 10 half dozen.8in x .34in) in size and weighs 603g (21.3oz). It'southward a large device, but it feels meliorate in the mitt than the similarly sized HP TouchPad or Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.i. It features an IR port and iii.5mm headphone jack up peak, near the rear-facing speaker ports and photographic camera, and offers users the convenience of micro-USB based charging and a micro-HDMI output on the bottom.

The 8.ii-inch Xyboard feels even amend in your easily, weighing a feathery 390g (thirteen.7oz) while still offer a fairly large display. Its 216mm x 139.8mm x viii.99mm (eight,5in x v.5in x .35in) widescreen dimensions brand information technology especially easy to pollex blazon on when held in its intended portrait orientation. The location of the rear-facing v megapixel camera is unfortunate, though, since it makes the device very hard to hold in mural mode without getting in the fashion of the lens. Like its large brother, the 8.ii has top mounted IR and headphone ports and micro-USB and micro-HDMI ports on the bottom. Different the 10.1, though, the 8.2's speakers are located along the top and bottom edges of the tablet, which is preferable for landscape-oriented video watching.

Both devices characteristic a dual-core 1.2GHz processor that is backed by 1GB of application RAM. The 8.2-inch model is available with either 16 or 32GB of internal storage. The 10.i-inch model is bachelor in those ii capacities too as a larger 64GB version.

I find the displays on the Xyboard 10.1 and eight.two to be entirely adequate, if uninspiring. I had some issues with my commencement 8.2 review unit's display (banding and interference), but the replacement that I received had no such problems. Both tablets' displays are sufficiently bright and colorful for easy indoor use and offer broad viewing angles.

Usability

When it comes to usability, about of the bug faced by a Motorola Droid Xyboard user will be of Google's making, due to the rather poor performance of its Android 3.2 Honeycomb operating system. The user interface is disjointed feeling, sluggish at times, in spite of bachelor processing power, and just awkward in my stance. The fact that some apps only run in landscape mode while other just in portrait means that no affair your preference y'all'll accept to rotate a Honeycomb tablet from time to fourth dimension. Motorola would have done well to hold the Xyboard 8.2 and ten.1 from market until they could be launched with Android four.0 Ice Cream Sandwich from scratch. For what it'due south worth, Moto and Verizon promise that an update is forthcoming.

There are some differences between the eight.2 and 10.1-inch models that impact usability. The 8.2 is easier to concur and utilise due to its smaller class cistron. Thumb typing, especially in portrait mode, is very like shooting fish in a barrel on the 8.ii. On the other hand, the 10.i is difficult to type on in portrait fashion due to its size, and darn near incommunicable for people with smaller hands when its held in its intended landscape orientation. The widescreen attribute ratio only makes for too wide a surface to navigate easily when typing.

The x.1 offers stylus and handwriting recognition capabilities. I didn't observe them to my liking (I rarely do), but at least Motorola offers three distinct methods for on screen handwriting, so there's something for everybody. What is lacking, however, is an like shooting fish in a barrel way to switch betwixt handwriting and the virtual keyboard. The popular-up notes function, which is attainable from the notification area, is also bachelor strictly on the x.i. Both Xyboard devices back up an external mouse and keyboard (not included).

Motorola wisely saw fit to include a nice assortment of wallpapers on the Xyboards - something that was sorely needed. The main applications bill of fare is stock, with its horizontally scrolling pages and dedicated "My apps" view. The notification area is as well mostly untouched, and still lacks a way to articulate all notifications at once, which is odd considering that Android smartphones generally lack a way to clear private notifications.