Suntan
Well-known member
- Mar 16, 2011
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How do you do that?
So far flash has worked just fine, but I would still prefer to turn it off most of the time.
-Suntan
Is Xoom slower than iPad?
- Thread starter ecaggiani
- Start date
How do you do that?
So far flash has worked just fine, but I would still prefer to turn it off most of the time.
-Suntan
The downfall, imo of this device. They chose to use a HDD which will probably be a 4200 RMP drive. If you have used any Archos devices (which I have) it will make the UI feel sluggish as it tries to keep up with loading varoius elements. The other issue I have (and reason I love the Xoom) is the lack of USB and HDMI ports built in. Asus is going to sell you a dock for $100 bucks with those ports built in. I don't want to carry additional docks, just as I don't want to carry an Apple $40 dollar HDMI dongle. Built in for me, and for me personally, I won't buy a tablet with a HDD, simply eats to much battery, to slow and not worth saving a hundred bucks or so.
Xoom will see updates as Google releases them, no waiting for company xyz to update Touchwiz, Sense or whatever. The advantages of the built in ports, SD card slot and being basically the "Google tablet" more than justifies the $599 price. Yes the $799 seems a bit steep considering I won't have LTE for anohter year basically, but either way for the ports, SD and such it's worth it. The one missing thing I hope Xoom number 2 brings... IPS or better display, after all that is what a tablet is all about for me. I hope they upgrade that soon!
I am pretty sure I had that option when i installed Flash, or it might be in the debug stetting. Type "about:debug" in the browser to access more options. I"ll have a look around. Not finding it yet this morning. Basically if a Flash video is present I see a small grey box with a green arrow pointing down in the middle. Touch it and it loads up flash on the page, works great.
TJH132
Well-known member
- May 5, 2010
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Go to the settings in the Browser (upper right icon). Go to the 'Advanced' tab. Select 'Enable Plugins.' A requester pops up giving you the options Always off, Always On, or On Demand. On Demand causes flash to show as an empty box on the web page. You touch the box to get Flash to load.
Hope that helps,
TJH
So... the most interesting thing about this thread is how many people have both the iPad2 and XOOM... and most seem to heavily favor their iPad2.
I don't own an iPad2. We did have an iPad, because it was the only thing available for a time. Same with the iPhone. I owned the first iPhone within days of it's release and owned the next two the day of their releases.
Every week, almost every day, I'm sitting with someone with an iPad or iPad2. That's what I do. My job consists of traveling around having meetings... mostly on the East Coast. Since both devices are so new and I'm always with new people, there is always curiosity. The move away from notebooks in meetings is a common bond, so the conversation about tablets and pads always comes up and there is always a friendly comparison. I must say that almost none of the experiences cited in this thread are compatible with my experiences comparing my XOOM against an iPad2.
Loading an app, XOOM wins.
Loading a very large document (using Docs to Go), XOOM wins.
Loading a new web page, XOOM wins.
Please, try these three simple tests yourself. Simple apps, smaller docs and less complex web pages will show near identical performance, so seek out big and complicated so both units need to chew on the data.
I'm not going to get into the greater flexibility and benefits of Android for the enterprise user. Other than mention it. ;-) That would be a whole other can of worms... Android vs iOS. We're just talking hardware and like-for-like performance.
Can those of you who keep saying iPad2 is better/faster/snappier at stuff be a little more specific so we can actually test your observations and see for ourselves? Subjective observations are worthless. I'm an engineer. Tell me something I can actually do on both units that substantiate your claims/observations.
The rotation delay is by design. The MEMS units behave the same. Just play a game on either of them that depend on the motion/orientation of the units and you'll see for yourself. Disliking the pre-programmed time to flip the screen seems like a reach to find something wrong. You may as well say your prefer the aspect ratio of the iPad screen or complain the XOOM doesn't come in white.
And the OS issues. Yeah. It's a first release of the OS. I had some forced closings early on. It was a small handful of apps that I used on my phone. Most worked just as well as on my phone. For the ones that didn't, I simply downloaded one of the tens of thousands of apps in the market that essentially did the same thing, but works on the XOOM. My XOOM is not loaded with working apps that do everything I need. No more force closes. No issues whatsoever. Up until last weekend, I had be lugging around the notebook "just in case". Last weekend I made the decision to leave the notebook behind. And keep in mind, my job is all about docs, spreadsheets and presenting with PowerPoint and videos. (See my posts about the HP HDMI to VGA converter for a low cost device that will hook up to projectors).
I don't own an iPad2. We did have an iPad, because it was the only thing available for a time. Same with the iPhone. I owned the first iPhone within days of it's release and owned the next two the day of their releases.
Every week, almost every day, I'm sitting with someone with an iPad or iPad2. That's what I do. My job consists of traveling around having meetings... mostly on the East Coast. Since both devices are so new and I'm always with new people, there is always curiosity. The move away from notebooks in meetings is a common bond, so the conversation about tablets and pads always comes up and there is always a friendly comparison. I must say that almost none of the experiences cited in this thread are compatible with my experiences comparing my XOOM against an iPad2.
Loading an app, XOOM wins.
Loading a very large document (using Docs to Go), XOOM wins.
Loading a new web page, XOOM wins.
Please, try these three simple tests yourself. Simple apps, smaller docs and less complex web pages will show near identical performance, so seek out big and complicated so both units need to chew on the data.
I'm not going to get into the greater flexibility and benefits of Android for the enterprise user. Other than mention it. ;-) That would be a whole other can of worms... Android vs iOS. We're just talking hardware and like-for-like performance.
Can those of you who keep saying iPad2 is better/faster/snappier at stuff be a little more specific so we can actually test your observations and see for ourselves? Subjective observations are worthless. I'm an engineer. Tell me something I can actually do on both units that substantiate your claims/observations.
The rotation delay is by design. The MEMS units behave the same. Just play a game on either of them that depend on the motion/orientation of the units and you'll see for yourself. Disliking the pre-programmed time to flip the screen seems like a reach to find something wrong. You may as well say your prefer the aspect ratio of the iPad screen or complain the XOOM doesn't come in white.
And the OS issues. Yeah. It's a first release of the OS. I had some forced closings early on. It was a small handful of apps that I used on my phone. Most worked just as well as on my phone. For the ones that didn't, I simply downloaded one of the tens of thousands of apps in the market that essentially did the same thing, but works on the XOOM. My XOOM is not loaded with working apps that do everything I need. No more force closes. No issues whatsoever. Up until last weekend, I had be lugging around the notebook "just in case". Last weekend I made the decision to leave the notebook behind. And keep in mind, my job is all about docs, spreadsheets and presenting with PowerPoint and videos. (See my posts about the HP HDMI to VGA converter for a low cost device that will hook up to projectors).
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This has nothing to do with Google or HP. Netflix is barred from releasing apps due to copyright concerns from the motion picture industry. They can be protected in iOS. Due to Android's open nature and linux kernal, there are ways of getting at the video content and distributing it illegally. Until those security concerns can be worked out, you won't see Netflix. The good news is Netflix is working on it diligently.
Ironically, e-mail and intranet sites can be more secure on Android than iOS. Many companies, CA (Computer Associates) for example, will only supply Blackberry or Android phones to their employees because of this.
Suntan
Well-known member
- Mar 16, 2011
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Awsome, thanks. At least some good came out of this thread.
To the OP, it doesn't matter which one is 'better.' You'd be a fool to get a xoom with company funds If your boss is so pro I pad...
-Suntan
The Xoom can be slow when syncing or sometimes the launcher will just slow down, but it is very fast 98% of the time, it still needs a lot of issues fixed like sometimes the browser won't even load pages, still compared to my friends iPad 2, it is slow in some of the UIs aspects.
Sent from my Xoom
Sent from my Xoom
Specifics please.
If people saying "it's a little slow" could actually give specifics on what they were doing when they experienced this slowness, it would really be helpful to the rest of us. We could duplicate this slowness and comment on it.
I'm sorry. I hate to sound like a raving Android fan-boy, but I've done more comparisons with more people than I can count and never have we noticed any slowness, slugishness or any other "-ness" in comparison to the iPad2. ;-)
Specifics. When comparing two devices specifics should be required. Anything else is subjective opinion.
I agree with the guy that said to be careful buying a non-Apple tablet if your boss is an Apple fan-boy. You'll know best about this, but it's prudent to seriously consider this angle.
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One quick example - I loaded a fairly large PDF file (Wrox - Professional Android Development) on both the ipad 2 and the xoom. The IPAD 2 rendered the book MUCH faster. Also, the page scrolling was noticeably faster on the ipad. I'll post some other tests later.
- Feb 18, 2010
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Although my boss is an Apple guy, he knows I am not and actually thinks it would be good to have an Android tablet in-house since we will probably be developing for both iOS and Android in the future. So he would totally be cool with me having one.
Also, the entire company contains both Android and Apple fans, so owning one or the other really does not make a difference in the grand scheme of things. There are tons of iPads at work right now, and they are all used for basic office type functions, like taking notes at meetings, email, browsing, etc. Getting a Xoom (or other Honeycomb tablet) will allow me to do the same things on a platform I enjoy.
To be honest, if the company offered me an iPad, I would decline it and purchase a Xoom myself. I am already too heavily invested in Google services and Android apps to be able to go Apple (not to mention I'm just NOT an Apple fan in the least).
The good news is that it sounds like it might take two or three months for this to happen anyway, so by that time I should hopefully have more Android tablet options to choose from (Nexus tablet, anyone?) Of course, that just means I have to be patient and not be too tempted to run out and get a Xoom today!
wynand32
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karmamule
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I have both a xoom and an iPad 2. Both have strengths and weaknesses. My comparison of the two is here:
A subjective comparison between the Motorola Xoom and iPad 2 ? KarmaMule
A subjective comparison between the Motorola Xoom and iPad 2 ? KarmaMule
No it doesn't, he is wrong. It uses the same flash storage as the xoom and the I pad.
Funny you mention a .pdf book, because that's exactly what I've used as the comparison. I use "The C Programming Language" by Kernighan & Ritchie in both .pdf format and .doc format. Docs to Go is the app used to open the documents, so both devices are using as close to the same program as possible and comparing hardware as much as possible.
XOOM wins. Please, anyone doubting this, go browse the web for both versions of the large document. They can be found free of charge. It is essentially the "bible" of C programming. The reason I use this particular book is the very fact that it is in the form of a very large MSWord or Adobe document and not in "book" form.
crypto, What you are inadvertently doing is comparing document reading apps, not hardware.
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A nice, well written, and balanced piece. I enjoyed reading it. And yes, the piece comes across as written by an iOS vs Android agnostic. Good job.
But also, as you state yourself, "This post will be a subjective 'user experience' comparison between the two.", there is a lack of hard comparisons. Lots of subjective feel. Not much there in the way of descriptions of things that can repeated by the reader.
iPad was around first, so it created baseline expectations. One example of this is some people's opinion that the XOOM screen is dim. I don't find it dim. You'd think I would because I'm in my 50's. Supposedly we elders like brighter conditions. ;-) IMHO, the iPad screen is overdriven bright by default. That's just my subjective opinion, but since they are having a problem with back light LED bleed through, there is clearly a design/engineering basis to my opinion. If they weren't driving the heck out of the LEDs, they wouldn't be having back light issues.
Anecdotally speaking, have you seen someone with an iPad on a darkened airplane with people who want to sleep? It's like a friggin' lighthouse.
My apologies, was sure I read they were going with HDD for the storage, I was mistaken. Looks like 16 or 32 flash storage.
My complaints, having both in the house and using them both for the past 3 weeks is not an issue of brightness at all. The difference is not subjective, it's a simple fact of quality. IPS in the iPad 1 and 2 vs the WXGA LCD (possibly TFT type) display in the Xoom. You can add back lighting to either and make them bright. The noticeable difference is in viewing angle, color, contrast and sharpness.
IPS is simply a better screen, which when side by side, the Xoom does look washed out and, well for lack of better words, like a cheap netbook screen. It gets the job done, but could be so much better. I deal with the lesser screen for the features of the OS, but if Xoom 2 hits with an IPS or better screen, I'll be upgrading day one.
My only real wish list for Xoom 2:
IPS screen
Better volume control buttons
Better fitting AC plug
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