Google Nexus 7 vs Motorola Xyboard 8.2
Motorola and Asus have always been the rivals when it comes to the tablet industry. The specialty is that, there rivalry can be best seen only in this sector. Motorola is well known for producing rugged devices that are in the range of smartphones to rugged tablets. Most of the products can act as enterprise mobility terminals and hence address a separate industry, as opposed to that of Asus. This is why their paths haven’t been crossed in the open. On the other hand, Asus is specialized in manufacturing laptops and PCs. They recently applied their expertise in laptops to produce an awesome tablet PC and currently as per our understanding; Asus has produced some of the best Android tablets in the market. Perhaps it is because of this proven track record that Google picked Asus to design and implement their first tablet.
These two tablets may address two distinct sections of the market. Motorola Xyboard can be considered as a mid-range tablet which is moderately priced. On the other hand, Asus Google Nexus 7 can be considered as a budget tablet that is offered for a relatively cheap price tag. Let us explore these two tablets individually first before trying to identify the major differences between them.
Google Nexus 7 Tablet Review
Google Nexus 7 is known as Nexus 7 in short. It is one of Google’s very own product line; Nexus. As usual, Nexus is designed to last till its successor and that means something in the rapidly changing tablet market. Nexus 7 has a 7 inch LED backlit IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen that features a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels at a pixel density of 216ppi. It is 120mm wide and 198.5mm in height. Asus has managed to make it thin as much as 10.5mm and rather light with a weight of 340g. The touchscreen is said to be made from Corning Gorilla Glass which means it would be highly scratch resistant.
Google has included a 1.3GHz quad-core processor on top of Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset with 1GB of RAM and a 12 core ULP GeForce GPU. It runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean which would make it the first device to run on this newest Android operating system. Google states that Jelly Bean is specifically developed to enhance the performance of the quad core processors used in this device and hence we can expect a high end computing platform from this budget device. They have made it their mission to eliminate sluggish behavior and it seems the gaming experience is highly enhanced, as well. This slate comes with two storage options, 8GB and 16GB without the option to expand storage using microSD cards.
The network connectivity for this tablet is defined by Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n only which can be a disadvantage when you can’t find a Wi-Fi hotspot to connect. This won’t be much of a problem if you live in a country that has a wide Wi-Fi coverage. It also has NFC (Android Beam) and Google Wallet, as well. The slate has 1.2MP front facing camera that can capture 720p videos, but it doesn’t come with a camera at the rear, and which may disappoint some. It basically comes in Black and the texture on the back cover is developed specifically to enhance the grip. Another attractive feature is the introduction of enhanced voice commands with Jelly Bean. This means Nexus 7 will host a Siri like personal assistant system which can answer your question promptly. Asus has included a 4325mAh battery that is guaranteed to last over 8 hours and that would give it enough juice for any general use.
Motorola Xboard 8.2 Review
Announced in early December and released late the same month, one would expect the Xyboard 8.2 to have specs that’d beat the best tablets at the time. Motorola Xyboard 8.2 or Motorola Xoom 2 as known in the other parts of the world besides USA is a scaled down version of Motorola Xyboard 10.1. The good thing is, the scaling down is only with the size and not with anything else. The Xyboard 8.2 scores dimensions of 139 x 216mm which is smaller than the predecessor and it’s also slightly thinner scoring a thickness of 9mm. The 390g weight is surprisingly lighter. It comes with not-so-curved-and-smooth-edges which certainly aren’t going to please the looks, but what it does provide is more comfort when you’re holding it because it’s designed not to sink into your palms. The Xyboard 8.2 features 8.2 inches screen as predicted by the name. The HD-IPS LCD Capacitive touchscreen is quite a wonderful addition to Xyboard which features 1280 x 800 resolution and 184ppi pixel density. It has great viewing angles and quite crisp reproduction of images and texts. The Corning Gorilla Glass reinforcement would keep the screen out of scratches all the time, as well.
Inside the Xyboard 8.2, we can see 1.2GHz Cortex A9 dual core processor on top of TI OMAP 4430 chipset. It also has PowerVR SGX540 GPU and 1GB RAM to back up the configuration. Android v3.2 Honeycomb binds the hardware together to provide a good user experience, and the cherry on top is that, Xyboard 8.2 is upgradeable to IceCreamSandwich. It comes with two storage options, 16GB and 32GB but doesn’t provide the flexibility to expand the storage with a microSD card which is unfortunate for 32GB just won’t be enough for you if you’re a movie junkie. Motorla has graced Xyboard 8.2 with a 5MP camera that has LED flash and autofocus and can capture 720p HD videos @ 30 frames per second. Geo tagging is also available with the support of A-GPS. The 1.3MP front facing camera bundled with Bluetooth v2.1 and A2DP gives a delightful video calling experience.
The best competitive advantage of Motorola Droid Xyboard 8.2 over Transformer Prime would be the LTE connectivity. It gives surprisingly fast network connectivity that Prime just can’t reach. It fully uses Verizon’s LTE infrastructure while it has Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n for continuous connectivity. It can also act as a wi-fi hotspot which is great with the improved speeds of LTE. Besides the usual suspects, it has a 2.1 virtual surround sound system and a mini HDMI port. The UI seems to be the raw Honeycomb built without any modifications by the vendor. It has 3960mAh battery and Motorola promises us a usage duration of 6 hours, which is only moderate.
A Brief Comparison Between Google Nexus 7 Tablet and Motorola Xyboard 8.2
• Google Nexus 7 is powered by 1.3GHz quad core processor on top of Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset with 1GB of RAM and 12 core ULP GeForce GPU, while Motorola Xyboard 8.2 is powered by 1.2GHz cortex A9 dual core processor on top of TI OMAP 4430 chipset with 1GB of RAM and PowerVR SGX540 GPU.
• Google Nexus 7 runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean while Motorola Xyboard 8.2 runs on Android 3.2 Honeycomb and is upgradable to v4.0 ICS.
• Nexus 7 has 7 inch LED backlit IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels at a pixel density of 216ppi, while Motorola Xyboard 8.2 has 8.2 inches HD IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels at a pixel density of 184ppi.
• Asus Google Nexus 7 has 1.2MP camera that can capture 720p video while Motorola Xyboard 8.2 has 5MP camera that can capture 720p videos.
• Asus Google Nexus 7 only features Wi-Fi connectivity while Motorola Xyboard 8.2 features both Wi-Fi and HSDPA/LTE connectivity.
Conclusion
After the introduction of Asus Google Nexus 7 yesterday, the tablet market is bound to change rapidly and reshape into an economical model. Google has proved that they can actually manufacturer a high end tablet with an economical price tag. This example will be followed by other vendors as well which would be advantageous to the consumers. On the other hand, if we consider these two tablets, Nexus 7 would score more in terms of performance and screen. Motorola balances the equation by adding super-fast 4G LTE connectivity in to the plate. It also has a better camera, higher storage capacity and several other factors you can see on a full-fledged tablet. Although this is the case, the final verdict may be imposed upon the declaration of price tag where Motorola Xyboard 8.2 is priced almost as twice as that of Google Nexus 7. Hence in my opinion, consumers may prefer to go for Nexus 7 over other similar tablets in the range.