Well as the title says I just got home with this thing. Holy crap it sucks so bad to type on I'm gonna finish this up on my PC.

Ok, first off, I didn't think I'd ever buy a tablet. I guess they have their uses, but I find them to be a complete pain in the butt. To make it even harder, this thing uses some Android 3.2 OS and I don't even know how to close the web browser on it. So there it sits in the other room with Nico open...and I have no idea what I'm going to do with the thing.


http://www.amazon.com/MOTOROLA-XOOM-And ... B0045FM6SU

Well, other than having no clue how to use it or the OS that it has, I find it to be very cool. The OS seems pretty simple, but I am more simple than it apparently. The layout of everything is pretty nice and overall it accesses things (web browser, media player, clock...that's all I know how to access) pretty quickly.

How/Why did I even get it!?

Well, this guy shows up in my programing class, Brian McClendon. He talks a bit about how he graduated KU engineering and helped develop Google maps and Google Earth. Side note: Meadowbrook Apartments in Lawrence, is the default center point of Google Earth. At the end of his presentation, he mentions how he and his wife purchased 100 of these tablets as a donation to those students enrolled in Programming 1 and 2 (now Java based instead of C++).

The idea behind it is to get those extremely smart and creative students to create programs and apps for the tablet. Since I can't even figure out how to close the browser, I don't think I will be developing anything.

So now my Dad has an iPad given to him by his work, and I have a xoom. Neither one of us know how to use these things LOL. Give me time though. I won't be rooting it, but i'll get it figured out.

*edit* We're also going to be using them in Lab, so maybe we'll get taught how to use it? Maybe we'll write code with Eclipse on them? I have no idea.

Anyone know of streaming music sites? Pandora wants me to pay, di.FM won't work (it downloads osome tiny file but my music thing on here doesn't work with it. Likely a a compatibility issue.), and I can't listen to my local radio station because it requires flash and for some reasons it won't install on this thing.

Side note: This thing has awesome spell checker. I keep fat fingering this touch screen keyboard and it fixes everything automatically.

I had one for a few months. Went with the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the end as its lighter and easier to hold. The Xoom has better accessories though. I really liked the HD speaker dock. I could set up music just about anywhere quickly. I wanted to get the otterbox case for it, but it came out right before I returned it.

For typing, try to sign up for the Swype Beta. Its a brilliant typing program and worked well on the Xoom before I returned it. For tablets it even has the option to dock a 1/4 screen sized version along the bottom edge. I have mine on the lower right on the Gtab10.1 so I can just use my right thumb to type/swype. Its still not as good as a physical keyboard, but much much better than pecking. Worst case, you can al;so get a bluetooth keyboard and use that if you need to type a lot.

Not sure if you are unfamiliar with android, but you don't necessarily close programs. Just hit the home button on the lower right and you'll go back to the home screen. Android will manage the appps and close them if more resources are necessary. I think you can close windows in the stock browser. I'm using samsung's touch interface for the stock android browser, so mine looks different, but the functionality should still be there. Perhaps hit the x on the tab for the web page window you are browsing. I wanna say that its there even if one tab is open and it will close the window, but reopen the home page in its place. To get out of the program, just hit home at the lower right.

I took a webinar about developing for android months ago. I don't have any of the prereqs to take any courses available at my school, but it would sure be nice to put some of the ideas I have out there and see if it makes me a bit of extra cash.

Pandora has a free version last I checked. I pay for a subscription though as I use it a lot and wanted to be able to use the windows application. But I used it for a while without paying a dime.

You can also try slacker radio. I haven't figured that one out yet though. I haven't had much time to try to and when I used it just playing the genre I was looking for, I ended up getting a bunch of the unpopular songs from the artists I knew or recognized. It came preloaded on my Bionic.

As for what to do with it, the basics are consuming the web. Its not a very efficient productivity tool. There are plenty of apps to choose from. I use it to look over some sites and news while laying in bed as I wind down. It also makes a great portable device to take with me so I can browse the web at other people's homes (they have to give me wifi access, or in some cases, I was able to tether via bluetooth to the Droid X I had). I also have NES, SNES and N64 emulators on my tabs with various game ROMs. I coupled it to a classic bluetooth Wii controller so I can play using a game pad. You can also use a standard wiimote. If you root it, you can use a PS3 controller.

I'll have to check some of these out. I'm in seminar right now listening to Brian Mclendon. Pandora has a free app, but you have to pay for a subscription. Otherwise they limit you to something like 40hrs/mo of music. *edit* I found a work around for the 40hr/mo cap for windows and mac. I don't know if it works on droid 3.2 since I can't access flash folders and delete temporary files.
http://www.offroaders.com/info/pandora- ... -limit.htm

Well I have not yet checked out those music streamers, but I did get an MP4 converter so I can put movies on it. Now that I am getting used to the functionality of this thing, I am starting to enjoy it. A huge jump in satisfaction was my ability to "right click" by holding my finger on something.

Currently I am still getting used to the awkward cut/copy/go back function. A little yellow arrow thing pops up and places a cursor right there. Since you have no arrow buttons, you have to drag it around to place it where you want to. Well because my finger covers 5-6 letters, it's easy to get it to move to the wrong letter. Then when I drag to go back, it highlights words instead of moving. Such a pain in the butt...

Battery life seems very good (rated for 10hrs of web surfing), which means I don't use hardly any battery when looking up my lab procedures on the ku.wiki page in class. The picture quality, most importantly with movies, is good. I've only tried 720p rips because I believe the screen resolution is 1280x800. anything more than 720p is a waste.

Looneybomber wrote:Currently I am still getting used to the awkward cut/copy/go back function. A little yellow arrow thing pops up and places a cursor right there. Since you have no arrow buttons, you have to drag it around to place it where you want to. Well because my finger covers 5-6 letters, it's easy to get it to move to the wrong letter. Then when I drag to go back, it highlights words instead of moving. Such a pain in the butt...

That little yellow arrow thing is a recent addition to Android, too. Before, if you didn't have a trackpad or arrow keys, you were SOL for text-editing. Just one more reason I demand a trackpad on my Android devices. Text editing (especially copy/paste) has improved a lot since early versions, but it's also still one of the OS's weakpoints. But...at least you get an OS-wise clipboard unlike SOME mobile OSs.

As for the tablet, I've gone back and forth between I NEED ONE and "meh" more times than I can count. I've run all sorts of Android ROMS on my Nook Color, from 2.2 to 3.1. It's always the same: install OS on Nook, get excited about cheap tablet, tweak everything...then realize that my phone already does all that stuff anyway. Yeah, the screen's smaller, but that just means I can take it anywhere. Maybe if I was a dumbphone user I'd see the point in a tablet, but as a whole I see devices slotted between smartphones and laptops (be they tablets or netbooks or anything else) as an answer to a question I never asked.

I also feel like Honeycomb isn't as polished as Gingerbread (especially 2.3.4/5). It might be better formatted to large screens, but the UI functions themselves feel awkward in places. If I bought a tablet I'd probably dual boot so I could run 2.3.5 with a custom launcher as well. That way I could get the best of both worlds.

MinisterofDOOM wrote:Maybe if I was a dumbphone user I'd see the point in a tablet, but as a whole I see devices slotted between smartphones and laptops (be they tablets or netbooks or anything else) as an answer to a question I never asked.

I am a dumbphone user and I still don't see the need for a tablet/netbook. Now that I have it, it's nice to have, but a laptop would work better for me. On the bright side, for school use, this xoom will be fine and keep me from having to buy another laptop. Plus KU is real hilly, so the lighter my backpack, the better.