Two Android Tablets Take on Apple: One Is Up to the Task
Xyboard with Android 3.2 is in dire need of performance tweaking: Web browsing is probably the most basic task that anyone can ask a tablet to do. Unfortunately, the Xyboard doesn’t do that basic thing well.
The stock Android browser on the Xyboard can be deceiving. In the first few weeks I used the Xyboard, Web browsing seemed fast. That’s because, as it turns out, I wasn’t using it for extended periods of time. In other words, when I picked up the Xyboard and played with it for 15 minutes or so—which I tended to do in the first few weeks because I couldn’t immediately wean myself off the iPad that I had customized over the pervious ten months—it seemed fast.
But once I started customizing the Xyboard and used it for long stretches (as I’d been doing with the iPad), it broke down.
Well, the Xyboard certainly sounds like one hell of a device. If you can’t even browse the web with satisfaction, what exactly can the damn thing do? But I digress, there’s so much more to like about it:
And it gets worse. My Xyboard, despite being announced just as Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) was being released, came with Android 3.2. And it won’t get Ice Cream Sandwich until “Q3” (third quarter) of this year. If, in fact, Motorola doesn’t delay the update (not unheard of in the annals of promised updates).
I don’t know if ICS would solve the performance problems, but it might at least be a start.
I could go on, citing other negatives (text input), but I won’t because I’ve covered the most serious shortcoming for me: browsing.
This article very clearly shows why the iPad is running away with this market. What’s the point of using a tablet if even the most basic tasks are this frustrating?