Difference Between Apple iPad 3 and Motorola Xyboard 10.1

Apple iPad 3 (New iPad) vs Motorola Xyboard 10.1 | Speed, Performance and Features Reviewed | Full Specs Compared
 

Some people tend to think that the market for tablet PCs is artificial. Their argument is that Apple created such a magnificent device and created an artificial demand for that slate. They back up this argument by using the distinction between a smartphone and a laptop. A smartphone was used to call and text along with extended usages like browsing the internet and utilization of simple applications to make your life easier. On the other hand, the laptops were basically used as mobile workstations replacing the use of stationary PCs in almost everything. They were used for mobile entertainment purposes, for corporate responsibilities and for the use of programmers. Laptops were even used by hardcore gamers eliminating the distinction between PCs and laptops completely. This separation of interests is what they use to explain the artificial demand for tablet PCs.

The definition Apple gives is completely different to this. Most of the people have the same set of needs from a slate. These needs include browsing the internet, watching a movie and listening to music. What Apple has done is to come up with a slate that is of the perfect size facilitating all these common needs. The fact that all these needs come with a thin touchscreen slate was such a new idea and it may have well created an artificial market for the product, but that doesn’t mean the sheer growth of the market can be explained by that. What we have here is a compendium of an artificial market that was created to facilitate a common set of needs of the consumers more easily. In fact, only the creation of the market was artificial and without much effort in marketing, tablet market skyrocketed and a lot of vendors came in to play. Today we are witnessing the third generation of the iPad, which Apple prefers to call as ‘The new iPad.’ This is a spectacular device and we are going to compare it with another device produced by a vendor who entered the tablet market in the early days which is Motorola Xyboard 10.1.

Apple iPad 3 (New iPad 4G LTE)

There have been many speculations about Apple’s new iPad because it had such a pull from customer’s end. In fact, the Giant is trying to revolutionize the market again. Many of those features in the new iPad seem to add up to a consistent and revolutionary device that is going to blow your mind. As rumored, Apple iPad 3 comes with a 9.7 inches HD IPS retina display that features a resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels at a pixel density of 264ppi. This is a huge barrier that Apple has broken, and they have introduced 1 million more pixels to the generic 1920 x 1080 pixels display which used to be the best resolution a mobile device provides. The total number of pixel adds up to 3.1 million, which is actually a monster resolution that hasn’t been matched by any tablet currently available in the market. Apple guarantees that iPad 3 has 44% more color saturation compared to previous models, and they have shown us some amazing photos and texts which looked wonderful on the big screen. They even cracked a joke about the difficulty of displaying the screens from iPad 3 because it has more resolution than the backdrop they were using at the auditorium.

That’s not all about it, the new iPad has a dual core Apple A5X processor at an unknown clock rate with quad core GPU. Apple claims A5X to offer four-times the performance of a Tegra 3; however, it has to be tested to confirm their statement but, needless to say, that this processor will make everything work smooth and seamlessly. It has three variations for internal storage, which is enough to stuff all of your favorite TV shows. The new iPad runs on Apple iOS 5.1, which seems like a great operating system with a very intuitive user interface.

There is a physical home button available at the bottom of the device, as usual. The next big feature Apple introduces is iSight camera, which is 5MP with autofocus and auto-exposure using a backside illuminated sensor. It has an IR filter built into it which is really great. The camera can also capture 1080p HD videos, and they have smart video stabilization software integrated with the camera which is a good move. This slate also supports the best digital assistant in the world, Siri, which was supported by iPhone 4S only.

Here comes another stabilization for the wave of rumors. iPad 3 does come with 4G LTE connectivity apart from EV-DO, HSDPA, HSPA+21Mbps, DC-HSDPA+42Mbps. LTE supports speed up to 73Mbps. However, currently 4G LTE is supported only on AT&T network (700/2100MHz) and Verizon network (700MHz) in the U.S. and Bell, Rogers, and Telus networks in Canada. During launch, the demo was on AT&T’s LTE network, and the device loaded everything super-fast and handled the load very well. Apple claims the new iPad is the device that supports most number of bands ever, but they didn’t say what bands exactly. It is said to have Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n for continuous connectivity, which was expected by default. Fortunately, you can let your new iPad share your internet connection with your friends by making it a wi-fi hotspot. It is 9.4mm thick and has a weight of 1.44-1.46lbs, which is rather comforting, though it is slightly thicker and heftier than iPad 2. The new iPad promises a battery life of 10 hours on normal usage and 9 hours on 3G/4G usage, which is another game changer for the new iPad.

The new iPad is available in either Black or White, and the 16GB variant is offered at $499 which is rather low. The 4G version of the same storage capacity is offered at $629 which is still a good deal. There are two other variants, 32GB and 64GB which comes at $599 / $729 and $699 / $829 respectively without 4G and with 4G. The preorders started on 7 March 2012, and the slate will be released to the market on the 16th of March 2012. Surprisingly the giant has decided to roll out the device in US, Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland and Japan at the same time which makes it the biggest rollout ever.

Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1

Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 is actually the same as Motorola Droid Xoom 2 with some hardware modifications. It comes on Verizon taking the maximum out of LTE 700 speeds. This is the spectacular fact about the tablets nowadays, they use state of the art infrastructure. Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 is one of the very few tablets having LTE connectivity which differentiates it from the rest of the market. Been the successor of Droid Xoom, it comes with the same design. It has a different look than normal tablets and has slightly cornered edges that are not so smooth like Galaxy Tab or iPad 2. This is actually intended to be a comfort to your hand if you’re holding the tablet for extended amounts of time, but the choice depends on personal preference because it kind of gives Xyboard 10.1 a weird look.

Xyboard 10.1 comes with 1.2GHz ARM Cortex A9 dual core processor on top of TI OMAP 4430 chipset and PowerVR SGX540 graphics unit. This setup gives superior performance combined with the 1GB RAM it comes with. The Android v3.2 Honeycomb entails that fact and gives smooth controls to the tablet. The best thing is, Motorola has promised an upgrade to Android v4.0 IceCreamSandwich in the near future. It comes with 10.1 HD IPS LCD Capacitive touchscreen that features a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. The 149ppi pixel density makes the screen exactly same as Galaxy Tab 10.1 except the panel type. As usual, the panel comes with Corning Gorilla Glass reinforcement as well to make it scratch resistant. Xyboard is slightly larger and bulkier than Galaxy Tab where it scores 259.9 x 173.6 mm in dimensions and a thickness of 8.8mm and a weight of 599g. But the black metallic machine feels good in your hand and gives rather an expensive look.

Motorola has ported Xyboard 10.1 with a 5MP camera with autofocus and LED flash that can capture HD videos in 720p. It also has a front facing camera together with Bluetooth v2.1 for the use of video conferencing. The camera also comes with Geo-tagging feature with the support of A-GPS. As we’ve mentioned earlier, the best part of Xyboard 10.1 is that it comes with GSM connectivity or CDMA connectivity and features LTE 700 for super-fast internet. It’s fascinating how vendors adapt to new technologies. It’s a big deal to have LTE 700 connectivity today, but in a couple of months, it’ll be quite normal to have. But in any case, both Xyboard and Galaxy Tab have a competitive advantage in this end. It also features Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n connectivity with the ability to act as a wi-fi hotspot. The Xyboard 10.1 comes in 3 storage options, 16/32/64GB without an option to expand the storage using a microSD card. Besides the normal set of sensors in a tablet, Xyboard 10.1 also comes with a Barometer. The battery life is also impressive in Xyboard which gives 10 hours of playback time.

Conclusion

When you compare an old model with a cutting edge tablet that was released only moments ago, the outcome is predictable and is obviously in favor of the new tablet. It’s the same case we see with these two tablets as well. Because of the factors like faster and better GPU, better display panel with higher resolution, better optics as well as faster connectivity make the new iPad supersede Motorola Xyboard 10.1 quite easily. As of now, we can’t really guarantee whether the processor itself would outperform Xyboard 10.1 because we still don’t know the clock rate. But apparently as for the specs, the GPU of the new iPad is definitely going to beat that of Motorola Xyboard 10.1. The only other issue I see is in the fact that the new iPad is relatively heavy and you will have some trouble in holding it for a long time. If that is the case, you may well think about using a Motorola Xyboard 10.1 instead of iPad 3 (new iPad). Other than that the new iPad simply wins the competition.