Motorola Xoom becomes official, headed to Verizon in Q1, upgradeable to 4G in Q2(Engadget.com)

Motorola has just outed its delicious Honeycomb tablet alongside another device, the LTE-equipped Bionic, on its official site. The company's CES press conference is ongoing right now, where the Xoomwill presumably get its proper announcement. All we know so far is that this slate is headed to Verizon, the press release is still somewhere in the hidden parts of the internet. More soon!

Update: The PR and full spec sheet are now embedded after the break. A 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 will power this 10.1-incher, while 4G connectivity will be made available as an update in Q2 following a Q1 launch. Other specs include a 1280 x 800 resolution, 5 megapixel camera, 720p video recording and 1080p video playback, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and finally, a healthy 32GB of onboard storage. The battery is rated to be capable of supporting 10 hours of video. Be still, our beating hearts!

[Thanks, Pratik]

Motorola Xoom official press pics at CES 2011

Motorola Xoom becomes official

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Creative Ziio 7- and 10-inch Android tablets

Somewhere in the world, Creative just announced a pair of 7-inch (480 x 800) and 10-inch (1024 x 768) Ziio tablets running the Android 2.1 OS. Both feature a ZiiLabs ZMS-08 processor, Bluetooth 2.1 EDR, WiFi 802.11b/g, and microSD expansion. They're slated to ship in December with the 7-incher costing €229 (8GB) or €259 (16GB) and the 10-incher demanding €289 (8GB) or €319 (16GB). And somewhere, somebody must be jonesin' for these resistive touchscreen tablets (China?), just not here.

JooJoo 2 coming in early 2011, powered by Android?

Remember JooJoo? Well, apparently they still exist even after some legal trouble and according to the latest reports, they might soon be back in action with the follow up to the original JooJoo. The Joo Joo 2, supposedly to be powered by Android, will be based on Google’s OS but totally modified for what “the tablet market needs now.” An example given was possibly unifying different messaging and social services like Gmail, email, Facebook, and Twitter into one interface. JooJoo said that the company is looking forward to being a multiple device company, so there might be even more JooJoos in the oven. We kind of have to ask… with the enormous success of the iPad and a new wave of tablets from known, established companies like Samsung and Research In Motion, would anyone even consider a JooJoo in the next couple months?

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Samsung Galaxy Player to rival iPod Touch

Up until now about the only way you could use Android on a device was to either buy a phone or pony up for an expensive tablet. Luckily someone realized that the operating system could power other types of devices and thats where the Samsung Galaxy Player 50 comes into this. However, sadly, for the time being this will only be bringing the Android love to those of you in Europe.

The above video has popped up showing off all of the features of the new Samsung Galaxy Player 50 (which has an interface that looks striking similar to a certainMP3 player from a little company called Apple). Thus far the device is only listed for sale in Europe with reports that one retailer in France has already put them out for purchase. No word yet on how much this device will cost you, though.

The player is the first Wi-Fi only Android device with access to the official Google apps such as Market, so this is a good sign that the operaring system could be getting some serious use on other devices in the not too distant future.  Some of the other features include:

• 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi
• 8 or 16 GB internal memory with microSD card slot for expansion
• 2 megapixel camera
• FM tuner
• Android OS 2.1
• 3.2-inch
• GPS
• DivX support

Without knowing a price as of yet it’s hard to say if this is going to be competitively priced to other similar devices, and there is also no word as of yet on a release in the United States.  No matter what the pricing and release plans are like, it’s still good to see that Android is getting closer to being a true competitor to iOS from Apple.

What say you?  Any interest in the Samsung Galaxy Player 50?

Engadget.com Exclusive: future LG Android phone for Verizon sports LTE(4G)

We were just handed this image with very little detail other than the fact that we're looking at "a future LG high end Android phone for Verizon," but we can deduce a few things: one, and perhaps most notably, you can just barely make out an LTE logo toward the bottom of the back. That likely makes this one of the six-odd LTE phones Verizon has publicly said are slated for the first half of next year. Secondly, it's got an HD camera of some sort -- probably indicating either 720p or 1080p capture -- and finally, it appears to have a huge, mirrored display and possibly a front-facing cam in the upper right. Looks like there's also a WiFi logo on back (of course), but can anyone make out the other two logos there? And more importantly, can anyone wait for this to launch?

Update: It's been proposed that one of the logos might be for DLNA, since LG's a major DLNA player -- most recently with its PlayTo service on the LG Optimus 7.

Android 3.0 tablet samples ready by December; Android 4.0 in 2H 2011. WOW!

Source: BRG