Verizon to Offer Wide Tablet Choices with Motorola Xoom Release

Verizon Wireless will be making the Motorola Xoom tablet available for sale in Verizon stores and on-line on Feb. 24. The new tablets, which were announced in a Super Bowl TV commercial that harked back to Apple's famed 1984 Macintosh advertisement, as well demonstrated features that aren't available on the Xoom's direct competition, the Apple iPad. The Xoom will be available for $599.99 with a two year contract, and for $799.99 without a contract.

Initially, the Xoom will run on the Verizon Wireless 3G network, nevertheless will be upgraded to 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution, latest standard in the mobile network technology) while 2011 second quarter at no cost. Presumably this will be an over-the-air software upgrade, yet Verizon Wireless has been unable to confirm that. The Xoom runs Google's Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" operating system. Unlike the current version of the Apple iPad, the Xoom features two cameras, one outward facing 5 megapixel HD camera and one inward facing 2 megapixel camera for video conferencing. As well unlike the iPad, the Xoom supports tabbed browsing and Adobe Flash.

By offering the Xoom, Verizon Wireless becomes a central source for tablet devices. The company has already been selling a Galaxy Tab device, and it recently started selling Apple iPads with a bundled MiFi mobile hotspot for about the same price as the Xoom. As a result, you can get pretty much anything you want in terms of tablets from Verizon Wireless, unless it's a WebOS tablet, because that one isn't shipping at all, to anybody.