If tablet PC announcements at CES 2011 are anything to go by, 2011 will be the year of the tablet. With the Motorola Xoom being elected CES 2011 Best in Show, it just goes to show the huge amount of excitement and potential that Honeycomb (or any tablets that are rumored to run Honeycomb in future) brings to the table.
The release of Android 3.0 or Honeycomb also signals Google’s intention to put its focus on the tablet market and many manufacturers should be aiming to release products making use of this OS.
Since Apple launched the iPad, there have been many Android tablets that have been launched that have been touted as potential iPad killers. One early example would be the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Although the Galaxy Tab definitely did provide consumers with an alternative choice, there have been no major breakthroughs in terms of hardware specs or software functionalities. Basically, there are no reasons strong enough for consumers to choose an Android tablet over the Apple iPad. Well, that is true until the arrival of Notion Ink Adam and the Motorola Xoom.
Notion Ink Adam was revealed late 2009 and was the very first tablet to run dual core Nvidia CPU. It has taken Notion Ink quite a while to gain momentum with the Adam but their recent involvements in CES 2011 really helped to put them and the Adam on the radar. Motorola Xoom, as all of us know by now, will be the first tablet to run Honeycomb.
Let us now compare the Notion Ink Adam against the Motorola Xoom:
Notion Ink Adam vs Motorola Xoom - Operating System
The Notion Ink Adam will ship with Android 2.2 and the Motorola Xoom will be released with Android 3.0. The Motorola Xoom has the advantage here but bearing in mind that there is still no firm release date for the Xoom and that the Notion Ink Adam is guaranteed to have Android 2.3 and Android 3.0 updates, it seems to be a slim advantage for the Motorola Xoom at best.
Notion Ink Adam vs Motorola Xoom - Processor
Both Android tablets will be running on NVIDIA Tegra 2:1GHz Dual-Core processors but performance wise, we expect the Adam to be better than the Motorola Xoom. The Motorola Xoom will run the standard Android 3.0 interface whereas the Notion Ink Adam runs a custom interface (Eden) which has been optimised for Android 2.2 and the Nvidia processor.
Notion Ink Adam vs Motorola Xoom - Camera
The Notion Ink Adam has an innovative swivel 3.2MP camera that eliminates the need for separate front and rear cameras. The Motorola Xoom has a 5MP rear camera with dual LED flash and a 2MP front camera for video conferences.
We can foresee this unique feature to appear in more and more tablets as this is a neat solution to a desired functionality in smartphones and tablets. Besides cutting down on material costs and programming complexity, the swivel camera concept also provides flexibility to its users.
Notion Ink Adam vs Motorola Xoom - Display
Although both tablets have 10.1 inch display size, the Motorola Xoom has a higher resolution than the Notion Ink Adam at 1280 x 800. However, the Notion Ink Adam features a Pixel Qi screen which promises huge battery power savings. The advantage of the Pixel Qi displays over the conventional LCDs is mainly that it can be set to operate under transflective mode (thus needs lower blacklight than normal LCDs) and reflective mode (requires only ambient light)--for eye-comfort, power-saving, and visibility under bright ambient light.
Summary
Quite honestly, if you are looking for a high end Android tablet within the first half of the year, the Notion Ink Adam is the best out there in terms of specs and availability. Instead of waiting indefinitely for the Motorola Xoom to be released, your best bet will be to place your order for the Notion Ink Adam. Furthermore, the price of the Adam (at US$550 before shipping) is very competitive as compared to the Motorola Xoom (with a rumored price of US$800).
However, we cannot ignore another important aspect of a gadget purchase, which is the issue of warranty and refund. There had been much confusion and ambiguity with regards to the warranty and refund policy during pre-order which had been supposedly resolved via multiple updates from various websites (The Notion Ink website does not contain any references to the warranty policy which makes it hard to get any official endorsement of the final policy).
The last thing that all of us want, upon placing an order, will be to find our purchase DOA (Dead on Arrival) and having to go through a long and tedious process of arranging for a replacement and mailing the defective product back to its headquarters for a diagnosis. Unfortunately for Notion Ink, this is where Motorola will be able to excel and provide a better support coverage via its local distributor network. This could ultimately swing the neutral votes back to Motorola.
However, we are very excited about the prospects of Notion Ink Adam and if you are pretty sure that you can handle some administrative overheads in the slim possibility of a hardware problem, you might want to give the Adam a try.
Do check out the unboxing video of the Notion Ink Adam from Goodereader below!
