In recent years, rival mobile phone companies have stolen some of Motorola's thunder. When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, it certainly was at Motorola's expense. Now, the big M could be ready for a comeback.
Motorola just announced a tablet that could be a serious rival to Apple's iPad. The Droid Xyboard will be available in two versions. There's going to be a 10.1-inch model and a smaller 8.2-inch version, and both are designed to put the Droid into more hands.
The Xyboard is essentially a version 2.0 of the Motorola Xoom, which debuted last year. This machine will certainly do everything the Xoom could do -- but much faster. It will be available for Verizon's 4G LTE network when it launches later this year.
The 10.1- inch model, which the company had on hand at this week's Consumer Electronics Show, features a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video chat. Other features include a dual-core 1.2GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, but alas, this one won't arrive with Android's Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) software.
However, the LTE support will make this tablet ideal for streaming video, which comes in handy since the unit has support for Netflix. (FYI: A Netflix subscription is required.) The jump to light speed won't come cheap, however. The Xyboard will start at $530 for the 16GB model, with a two-year contract from Verizon. That doesn't include the 4G data plan, which starts at $30 for a month for 2GB of data. Still, as tablets go, this is one feisty little Droid!
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