Ipad 2 or Xoom? - Honest Question

[Swede1]

I've been following the IPad 2 Forum in hopes of getting my Ipad 2 soon and have recently joined due to it being a great forum with not as much hostility like, say, MacRumors. I ordered online (4-5 weeks) and have gone to some early morning wait lines. I have an IPhone 4 and I knew the IPad 2 was right for me. I even played with a Xoom demo at Best Buy and found it heavy and not as responsive. It also seemed dark for the resolution it was touting.

However, I decided to play with another demo at a different Best Buy and found it to be better: more responsive and not as heavy as the previously demoed unit was, even though it still looked darker.

I tend to sway more towards Apple (don't care for the Android on phones) but now it got me wondering on my choice. I'm still planning on getting up early to try a few stores tomorrow for the IPad 2, but with the new WiFi Xoom coming out soon, what are the reasons you went with the IPad 2?

Was it brand name? Previous use? Hate Android? Faster responsiveness? I'm just curious in hopes of answering my constant mind questions before I make a rash mistake without questioning other avenues out there. Thanks.

I would say iPad all the way,, I had planned on getting a tablet for some time and waited until I could try the xoom before I made up my mind,, I tried it out the day it was available and I was not impressed at all,, I got the ipad2 on the day it was released an don't regret it for a second!

The biggest advantage as I see it with the iPad ( and all apple products ) is that it is so easy to use! I bet that if you would put an iPad, a motorola xoom and any other available tablet in front of a person that know nothing about computers and technology they would be up and running having fun with the iPad in a few minutes while they would have a much harder time figuring out how to use the xoom for example.

Oh, and the apple products are so much sexier than anything else out there too,,

 

[freebirdforever]

I have both and sell both at my job. Ipad all the way. Xoom sucks. Too much work to make it run right.

 

[Mtnmedic]

I have both and sell both at my job. Ipad all the way. Xoom sucks. Too much work to make it run right.

Yep.

I have a friend who HAD a Xoom. He took it back inside of two days after purchasing it. He met with a friend who has an iPad 2 and they compared the two devices side-by-side. They both agreed that although the Xoom has some potential, they had the same thought as you: too much work was needed to make it run smoothly. They thought it was nice to see that it had peripheral and Flash support, but the sacrifice was in the performance.

The iPad works well, right out of the box with little or no work on the part of the user. That is one very good reason why the iPad is the best tablet on the market, despite any perceivable shortcomings it may have. People, particularly NEW users of computing-type devices, have no time nor desire to mess around, learning how to use the interface and the peripherals, setting things up and troubleshooting stuff. They just want something that's simple, easy to use, works right out of the box and they can get right into having FUN playing games, surfing the 'net, communicating with folks and being productive, etc. This is the iPad's strong suit, aside from its form factor and its incredible battery runtime. It appears to me that tablets like the Xoom and others are just trying to do TOO MUCH for the average user. Apple GETS it. They've created a device for the people, not only for geeks who like to have all the specs possible on a device and are willing to fiddle with that device to get it to work just right.

The iPad is an intermediary device that just so happens to adapt well to many advanced uses. Other tablets are advanced devices that could be seen as laptop (or even desktop?) replacements but they do poorly as intermediary devices. Right now, the majority of people buying tablets AREN'T looking for something to replace their desktop and/or laptop computers. Maybe as a replacement for netbooks and other portable computing devices in which they require a larger screen to work with. Mobile computing is the wave right now and that's something folks can really get into. People aren't yet ready to part with desktops and laptops in favor of tablets, but it's only a matter of time. And innovation. Apple knows this. The easiest way to get people into mobile computing is attract them with SIMPLICITY and FUN. I honestly think the look and feel of the other tablets suggests that they're made primarily for business people and geeks.

Michael "Spam, spam, bacon, eggs and spam. Hold the bacon and eggs." Sent from my iPad using iPF

 

[Amok]

I patiently read some "ipad2 xoom comparisons" on the iPad2 at the Apple Store...well, i was trying out the iPad2 at the time. I then walked to BB and tried the Xoom. Aside from the fact that the browser crashed on me, it was okay. But if the browser crashed in just the 2 minutes i was plunking around on it, what else is lurking to cause me problems?

I'll wait for my iPad2 to ship and/or the distribution channels to work themselves out of the backlog. At least I have a pretty good idea of what I'll be getting at with an Ipad2.

 

[Thphilli]

First of all, there is no reason to bring up the nonsense some of you bring up when it comes to this old argument. To the people mentioning viruses:

iOS, BlackBerry OS fall at Pwn2Own | BGR

Every jailbreak is a virus, you know that right. Its a virus that injects itself through an exploit. So acting like iOS is this unbeatable wall of awesome is kind of shortsighted. Yes, Google had a ridiculous breach of security that they promptly fixed. It never should have happened in the first place. Basing your buying decisions on that is beyond moronic.

As for the Xoom vs the iPad2, its kind of obvious that very few here are worried about hardware differences, as no one has mentioned some MAJOR points which SHOULD influence a persons buying decision. I will lay them out.

The Xoom runs a Tegra 2. The Tegra 2 is a year old SoC that has SEVERAL major flaws. The video decoder in the SoC is very limited and is only able to play videos using the baseline profile h.264 and some limited main profile h.264. Most video that one downloads or rips from their DVD's and Blurays are in high profile h.264. This means that you would have to transcode all of your movies for them to play on the Xoom or any other Tegra 2 device. Now this might not seem like that big of a deal to iOS users as they are accustom to transcoding their movies mostly through iTunes for their device, but the iPad (yes original) and the iPad2 does not need to have videos transcoded for them to play. A jailbroken iPad (yes original)running XBMC can play 720p high profile h.264 flawlessly, and the iPad2 should be capable of playing high profile 1080p h.264, unless for some reason Imagination Technologies did not improve on their video decoder processor at all.

Second, the Tegra 2 as a GPU is GREATLY limited by its architecture. It has eight "cores", which consist of 4 vertex shader cores and 4 pixel shader cores. The downside to this architecture design, where the vertex and pixel shaders are separate is that you will only see the full power of the GPU when a game for instance is demanding exactly a 50% load from pixel shader and a 50% load from a vertex shader. The architecture of the Powervr SGX543MP2 is a unified architecture, which means that no matter what the demand of a game, no part of the GPU is sitting idle. This added to the fact that the Tegra 2 is simply outclassed completely by the design of the SGX543MP2 means that based purely on hardware that the Tegra 2 is closer to competing with the Galaxy S phones running the powervr sgx540 than with the iPad2.

Third, the screen of the Xoom is not an IPS panel. This means that viewing angles are not as good. Add to this that the black levels are not as good and the contrast is not as good. The Xoom does have the superior resolution and in my opinion the superior aspect ratio, but these are not as important if you are using an inferior panel.

If I was in the market I would clearly buy the iPad2 if I had to buy a tablet at this very second. I find iOS awful, but the fact is that Apple uses superior hardware and has a thriving tablet app store. Apple tries to pass off this idea that hardware doesn't matter, all while making it VERY apparent that they are more concerned than anyone else about hardware and upping the ante. That said, here is where the iPad2 falls short:

The current iOS is simply awful and is easily outclassed by the idea of Honeycomb and HP's WebOS for tablets. Notice I said "idea" of Honeycomb, because the OS simply isn't ready for primetime yet. Safari is a mess on iOS compared to the browser in Honeycomb. Notifications are ridiculous on iOS and EVERYONE else seems to get it right other than Apple. Multitasking is not as easy than on other platforms and is a crapshoot (some apps support it, some restart, etc). iMovie is pretty much only capable of editing iPad2 movies and other than that its a crapshoot. The camera app rotates the capture button, which is moronic. These are all OS issues that Apple needs to address in iOS5. They also need to address some other issues that I am not going to mention. Hardware wise, the speaker on the iPad2 is weird and easily muffled. The cameras are a joke, which is ironic because its probably that photo booth app that is gonna sell the most ipads. The smart cover is an amazing idea, with poor implementation. No magnets to hold the cover on the back of the iPad2 nor a hole for the camera to see through.

 

[4estGump]

Well, I went out on my daily excursion looking for an IPad 2 and no luck. So I decided to do some errands and stop at Best Buy on the way home just to play with it. One of the computer clerks came up to me to see if I had any questions. I already felt like I've beaten a dead horse and bothered him enough before about if he had any in stock so I said no. Then he did something I didn't expect. He asked "You sure you don't want one?"

My jaw dropped, I was like "I definitely want one." He said they got 35 in stock around 2 hours ago (1pm) and they were limited in types. I first thought about those on the reservations list, then said "I want the black, 32 GB, WiFi only." He went in the Geek Squad area and came back 2 minutes later, IPad 2 in hand. I was so excited!

I was so excited, I literally gave him a hug behind the counter as he rang me up. Now I cancelled my Apple order and I'm just syncing everything up.

Thanks for the advice everybody and now consider me as one of the IPad family!

 

[SweetPoison]

Yay!!

 

[freebirdforever]

Well, I went out on my daily excursion looking for an IPad 2 and no luck. So I decided to do some errands and stop at Best Buy on the way home just to play with it. One of the computer clerks came up to me to see if I had any questions. I already felt like I've beaten a dead horse and bothered him enough before about if he had any in stock so I said no. Then he did something I didn't expect. He asked "You sure you don't want one?"

My jaw dropped, I was like "I definitely want one." He said they got 35 in stock around 2 hours ago (1pm) and they were limited in types. I first thought about those on the reservations list, then said "I want the black, 32 GB, WiFi only." He went in the Geek Squad area and came back 2 minutes later, IPad 2 in hand. I was so excited!

I was so excited, I literally gave him a hug behind the counter as he rang me up. Now I cancelled my Apple order and I'm just syncing everything up.

Thanks for the advice everybody and now consider me as one of the IPad family!

So happy for you! Now if only I was as lucky ad a bb employee.......xD