Another day, another Android tablet sale somewhere on the internet. This one is different however, because today Woot! not only has deals on the Motorola XYBOARD tablets, they are new devices. Usually you will see discounted prices on tablets that have been refurbished by one company or another, but these 8.2″ and 10.1″ tablets are new and cheap.

The 16GB 8.2″ WiFi tablet is the cheapest of the bunch at $199, but if you are looking to upgrade to the LTE version it’s only 20 dollars more. If a 10.1″ tablet is more your size, $209 is what it will cost you. These are absolutely the lowest prices you will see on a new Android tablet. Granted the XYBOARD isn’t the best tablet out there (you can read our review), but for this low of price what do you think?

Buy

Woot! Selling New Motorola XYBOARDs Starting at $199 [Deal] is a post from: Droid Life

Daily deal website Woot! is known for having Android tablets on sale every now and then, but today they are taking it to a new level. Just to name a few of the tablets that are on sale today we have the ASUS Transformer 10.1″ ($239.00), Motorola XYBOARD 8.2″ ($240.00) and the Toshiba Thrive 10.1″ ($249.00). You can also get the original Android tablet, the XOOM ($199.00) along with other tablets from ASUS, Viewsonic and VIZIO. 

If you’re the type to watch a lot of content on your tablet, you might be interested in the stands that Woot! is selling as well. All of the tablets on sale are refurbished and while that may deter some, I can speak from experience that my XOOM that I purchased from Woot! last year is still running great. If you’re looking to get a friend or relative a late Easter gift, you couldn’t hurt to check this sale out.

To check out the deals, go here.

Cheers Humphry and Jules!

Woot! Hosting Blowout Sale On Tons of Tablets and Accessories is a post from: Droid Life

Still trying to decide what to spend all of that holiday cash on? Feel free to cruise over to Daily Steals‘ “Everything Must Go” sale for options. They have a number of Android products, from phones to tablets to docks to media players, all at what they are claiming to be steep discounts. While some of them may be, it’s probably worth noting that these deal sites exaggerate most of their discounts (take the Padfone 2 discount for example), so shopping around is always a smart idea.

Here are some of their sales:

• Galaxy Nexus 4G LTE (re-certified) – $220 off-contract
• Motorola Xyboard 4G LTE 32GB – $299
• Motorola Xyboard 4G LTE 64GB – $349
• Asus Padfone 2 16GB w/ Dock – $749
• Motorola Lapdock 100 – $49
• Samsung Galaxy Player 16GB – $129 (might be sold out)

Via:  Daily Steals

Cheers Cory and everyone else!

Daily Steals Offering a Number of Android Devices at Discounts: Galaxy Nexus, Padfone 2, Xyboard, and More is a post from: Droid Life

Verizon and Motorola approved the Ice Cream Sandwich update for the DROID Xyboard 10.1 back in August, but for whatever reason, they weren’t ready to release it for the little brother, the Xyboard 8.2. Today, they approved it, so the four owners of the device should receive the update within the next week or so. Normally when we see these support docs go live, the update follows shortly thereafter.

The update is 299MB in size. 

More info.

DROID Xyboard 8.2 Ice Cream Sandwich Update Finally Approved is a post from: Droid Life

Last night, Motorola approved Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0.4) for the WiFi XYBOARD models, leaving out the “DROID” XYBOARD variants. This morning, Verizon gave the update for the “DROID” versions the green light and has posted the changelog for it. The build number is 11.11.27 and is 336.4MB in size.

From the pictures, this appears to be very similar in styling to the ICS builds we have seen for the DROID RAZR and DROID 4, but of course, in a blown up ratio to meet the tablet standard. A new lock screen with quick app shortcuts is included, you get folders, more control in your apps drawer, and a data usage monitor.

We are not seeing information an ICS update for the XYBOARD 8.2.

When these support docs go live, we tend to see the updates within a matter of days. Be sure to let us know if it pops up! 

 More.

Verizon Approves Ice Cream Sandwich for the DROID XYBOARD 10.1, Here are the Details is a post from: Droid Life

As a fresh way to kick off the week, Motorola has announced that an Ice Cream Sandwich update is available for both models of the XYBOARD WiFi tablets. As you would imagine, the jump from Honeycomb to ICS is rather massive, so the changelog is quite extensive. Some of the more intriguing features users will notice is the re-vamped notification area, re-sizeable widgets, and face unlock.

If you happen to own of these tablets, install the update and let us know how you’re liking ICS down below.

Via: Motorola, Droid Dog

Ice Cream Sandwich Update Now Available for Motorola XYBOARD WiFi 10.1 and 8.2 is a post from: Droid Life

Are you one of the 10 people that owns a Motorola XYBOARD? I’m kidding of course. If you do own one, then prepare yourself for Ice Cream Sandwich, as it has leaked and is flashable as a legitimate update to both WiFi and 4G versions in 8.2″ and 10.1″ sizes. Similarly to what we have seen with the RAZRs and Bionic, these appear to be real update.zip files pulled from Motorola servers.

You should be warned that if you decide to update to these, there is a chance that you won’t ever be able to come back. We are hearing that the fast boot files are no where to be found, so please approach with caution. The last thing you want to do is update to this and then it end up not being official.

Via:  XDA

Cheers Rich!

Ice Cream Sandwich Leaks for the DROID XYBOARD 8.2 and 10.1 is a post from: Droid Life

Verizon has been silent for the most part when it comes to Ice Cream Sandwich updates for their lineup of Android devices. Many of the OEMs that they deal with have informed us in one way or another, but we were waiting for Big Red to make some things official since they sign off on final software. Their list is now public and is as follows.

For HTC devices, we will see Android 4.0 on the Thunderbolt, Incredible 2, Rhyme and Rezound. Sorry original Incredible owners. For Motorola devices we will see it on the XOOM, Bionic, RAZR, RAZR MAXX, DROID 4 and XYBOARD tablets. Sorry DROID X, DROID X2, and DROID 3 owners. For Samsung devices it looks like only the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 7.7 will see it. No DROID Charge. From LG, only the Spectrum will receive ICS.

Sooo, quite a few devices missing including a couple that should have more than enough power under the hood to run Android 4.0.

Update:  Yes, I see that it says “4G LTE devices currently scheduled” in the press release which has led many to believe that this is simply a 4G LTE only list and that some 3G devices were specifically left out. I’m having a hard time following that logic since the Incredible 2 and Rhyme were also listed and are 3G-only phones. Also, the DROID Charge which is 4G LTE, is left off. This is an assumption of course, but I would tend to lean towards this list being pretty complete.

No dates were given.

Ice Cream Sandwich Coming to Many Verizon Wireless Smartphones

03/06/2012

Verizon Wireless will deliver a tasty treat to many smartphone and tablet customers this year – Android™ 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS).

It’s a frozen snack that many in the Android community have been eager to try since ICS launched in December 2011 on the Galaxy™ Nexus™ by Samsung. The redesigned user interface includes many cool enhancements, including upgraded multitasking capabilities, notifications and Web browsing.

Wondering if your device will receive Ice Cream Sandwich? Here’s a list of Verizon Wireless 4G LTE devices currently scheduled to be upgraded.

HTC:

• HTC ThunderBolt™
• DROID Incredible 2 by HTC
• HTC Rhyme™
• HTC Rezound™

Motorola:

• Motorola XOOM
• DROID BIONIC™
• DROID RAZR™
• DROID RAZR™ MAXX™ DROID 4 DROID XYBOARD 8.2
• DROID XYBOARD 10.1

Samsung:

• Samsung Galaxy Tab™ 10.1
• Samsung Galaxy Tab™ 7.7

LG:

• Spectrum™ by LG

We will continue to update this list as additional details become available throughout the year. Also, follow @VZWNews on Twitter for additional upgrade announcements.

Verizon Releases List of Phones to Get Ice Cream Sandwich Updates is a post from: Droid Life

Don’t feel like paying the high price tag, but still want to get your hands on a Motorola DROID XYBOARD 8.2 tablet? Well, Big Red is giving away two tabs every single day until March 11. Supposing when you’ve sold about 8 in total, they have to figure out something to trim the inventory. All you have to do is fill out the entry form and you can enter as many times as you like. It’s definitely a great way of getting a brand new tablet into your life for the best price…free. Good luck!

Be sure to check out our DROID XYBOARD review as well.

Via: Verizon

Cheers Drewrx!

Verizon Giving Away Two DROID XYBOARD 8.2 Tablets Every Day Until March 11 is a post from: Droid Life

Motorola did the DROID XYBOARD no favors with its unfortunate name, and with the device coming out in a timeframe just before the advent of quad-core processors, this tablet ended up out in the cold. Throw in a high price tag on-contract and an unenthusiastic launch and you have one interesting tablet left. But this is the first tablet to bear the legendary DROID name. Does it stand up to it? Let’s have a look.

The Good:

(XYBOARD on top, XOOM on bottom)

• Weight and Feel: Coming from a guy who didn’t have a problem with the XOOM’s thickness and weight, handling the XYBOARD was an eye-opener. The tablet is almost half as thick as its predecessor and nearly half the weight as well. The whole tablet just feels much more pleasing in the hand than the original XOOM. The back edges of the device is covered in a black hard rubber which has a dual purpose. It makes the tablet easier to hold, but also cuts down on scratches and rough points when you set it down. Overall Moto really took the form factor as the major point to improve on with this device.
• 4G LTE: Any tablet owner is missing out if they do not have 4G LTE packed inside. Coming from a WiFi-only XOOM it was refreshing not having to search for a network close to me. The XYBOARD offered fast download speeds wherever I was, whether walking down the street or in my place, most of the time having faster speeds than if I was connected to WiFi anyway. Definitely a big plus for this tablet.
• Performance (kind of): The 1.2GHz dual-core processor they have in this baby is no slouch. At times the tablet flies through apps and homescreens without any kind of lag. For the most part the tablet is snappy and responsive to what you want to do with it.
• Stylus Implementation: One fact that fell under everyone’s radar, even my own until it arrived, was that the 10.1″ XYBOARD came with a stylus. I was wondering what I would use the stylus for but Moto had me covered. In the action bar, right next to the settings button is a pen and paper emblem that will bring up a sticky note that you can write on whenever you want. Or if Evernote is your thing you can launch directly into that and take your notes there. The tablet comes packed with apps (more on that later) that let you use the stylus in fun ways, including Sketchbook Express which is a fairly advanced artistic app that makes perfect use of the stylus. Unfortunately the stylus doesn’t read how hard you are pressing like Samsung’s new S-Pen but it worked well anyway.

• Camera: The XYBOARD’s camera is pretty decent as far as tablet cameras go. I was unable to get a day with sun but even still colors were decent and the shutter was fast in snapping what I needed. You won’t be using it often but when you do it will get the job done.

• Screen: Moto definitely took some time to upgrade the screen from the original XOOM, which was notorious for ghosting with images coming across the screen. The XYBOARD’s screen is bright and vibrant. Just looking at the home screen is gorgeous and watching Netflix or any videos is a joy. There is still some ghosting when switching through large images across the screen but it has been cut down hugely since its predecessor.

The Not-so-Good:

• Performance (Honeycomb): The fact that this tablet launched with Android 3.2 Honeycomb was a bit of a head scratcher. The fact we learned that Motorola doesn’t plan on updating this for another 4 or 5 months to Ice Cream Sandwich is downright insane. After seeing how well Ice Cream Sandwich runs on other tablets, the XYBOARD will gobble it up once it is updated. For now though, Honeycomb is buggy, laggy and otherwise a let down. The tablet wants to show off it’s muscles but 3.2 isn’t suited for it.
• Battery life: We have come to expect bad battery life from anything that has an LTE radio in it but with a tablet sized battery I was expecting way more than what I got. One day with heavy use and lots of Netflix over 4G I drained the battery in almost 3 and a half hours. Days with switching between 4G and WiFi with less use yielded near 10 or more hours, although that was with lots of downtime as well.
• Bloatware: This tablet ties with the Droid 4 for amount of apps that are pre-loaded onto the device with 25. Not all of these are terrible though, like The Daily and Madden 12, which I could see myself using. However, most of them are apps that you are most likely never going to use and cannot be uninstalled or disabled. Motorola even threw in the “MotoPack” which lets you choose a group and installs apps based on that group. “Home Office” for instance installs apps like Out of Milk, Adobe Reader and Citrix Receiver. If Motorola and Verizon opted for one app that allowed you to install bloatware if you wanted it, I would be psyched. Let’s hope they think about this going forward.

• Not Quad-Core: You can’t really fault the tablet itself for this one but the Transformer Prime was right around the corner, signaling the advent of quad-core devices. It seems odd that the sequel to the first ever Honeycomb tablet wouldn’t be something that Moto put time into and made a leader of the pack.
• Price: No surprise here, you are looking at $429.99 on-contract for the smaller version of this tablet. If you want the 10.1″ version you’re staring at a $529.99 price tag with a contract for your 4G service. It’s just a little bit rough around the edges when you consider the WiFi-only version will only run you $399.

Gallery:

The Verdict:

After spending almost two weeks with the XYBOARD I have to feel bad for the device. The form factor is the most pleasing that I have seen in any tablet to date. Motorola really went out of their way, on the outside at least, to improve on everything that the XOOM did poorly. The tablet is light, easy to hold and thin. 4G speeds built in and some major processing power waiting to be harnessed sets this tablet up to be something special. But it’s not.

Like I have said before, the XYBOARD was doomed to a bad release date and poor marketing. The idea of signing up an on-contract tablet for 2 years is still a shaky idea with most people as well. Most people were hoping for the sequel to the XOOM to be the next great tablet but unfortunately this isn’t it. I find it hard to choose this tablet over my XOOM which is already running Ice Cream Sandwich very well and overall just runs better than the XOOM 2.

If you have to have a tablet on-contract with Verizon should you get this? Yes you should. Should you get the XYBOARD if you are just looking to get an Android tablet? Absolutely not. I can’t deny though, it was fun to see that massive red eye of Sauron boot up and have a tablet under the DROID brand. It’s unfortunate that this didn’t wow me like the OG Droid did.

Motorola DROID XYBOARD Review – Verizon is a post from: Droid Life

If you own a DROID XYBOARD – that would be the locked down, non-quad-core Honeycomb tablet with Blur splashed over top of it – you will soon be able to root thanks to @djrbliss. I’m assuming the root method is similar to what he released for the rest of Motorola’s products last week, but the actual 1-click file won’t be available until tomorrow. You can find the root method at MDW.

I’m curious, did anyone buy a XYBOARD?

To the Handful of DROID XYBOARD Owners, Your New Tablet has been Rooted is a post from: Droid Life

Motorola updated their timeline for device updates this morning, finally revealing their plans to push Ice Cream Sandwich. So far, the list is not going to excite any of you. As far as U.S. devices go, none of them on Verizon have specific details and are currently “in evaluation.” You will see that the Atrix, Atrix 2 and Photon 4G will all receive Android 4.0 in Q3, but the RAZR, RAZR MAXX, Bionic, DROID 4 and almost any other device tied to Big Red has not been given an expected rollout date. In fact, those non-VZW phones are all in development while the ones you all care about are still in the “planning” phase.

Why is that? Tough to tell. We were all hoping that the RAZRs and the Bionic would see this major update first since they were released just before Ice Cream Sandwich went live. Q3 though for many of these? Seems so far away. Then again, Moto did provide an outlook into how they update phones which we calculated to be about 6 months. I guess that would put us right around the end of Q2 or early Q3. Someone figure out why the Atrix series and the Photon would be up first ahead of the DROID brand. Carrier, maybe?

Hoping to know more very soon. 

Via:  Motorola

Motorola Releases Initial Ice Cream Sandwich Update Timeline – DROID RAZR, RAZR MAXX, Bionic, and DROID 4 Still Being Evaluated is a post from: Droid Life

More updates for Verizon Android devices! The DROID XYBOARD tablets are up next and will receive build 1.6.0M_279. That’s right, both will see almost the same exact update. The only difference we were able to spot, were the additional “Stylus enhancements” that are included in the 10.1′s new build. Other than that both will receive better browser performance, improved touch response, will hold data connection while toggling between WiFi, and most notably, are now “Global Roaming” devices. If you are keeping track, these would be Big Red’s first 4G LTE global devices, something we hope points towards them unlocking the ability in phones.

Update:  Verizon reached out to explain exactly how this global update will work. First, XYBOARDs will receive the update that is detailed in this post. Within 2 weeks, a second update will arrive that updates the SIM card, making it ready for global travels. Once users have received both they will have coverage in 205 countries, and more than 150 of those with 3G speeds.

The updates are 83.8MB in size.  

More info:  XYBOARD 10.1 | XYBOARD 8.2

XYBOARD 10.1 and 8.2 Have Updates Available as Well, Both Become Global Roaming Devices (Updated) is a post from: Droid Life

Why Motorola went with the term “XYBOARD” here in the U.S. is beyond me, but if you want a tablet with such a unique (to put it nicely) name that isn’t tied to a carrier and connects via WiFi only, then you can pick one up today. Both the 10.1″ and 8.2″ models are available in two sizes:  16GB or 32GB. The 16GB 8.2″ model runs $399, with the 10.1″ starting at $499. Personally at that price, I would recommend the Transformer Prime since it already has Ice Cream Sandwich (XYBOARDs do not), runs a quad-core Tegra 3 processor (XYBOARDs only dual-core OMAP), has an advanced display that is crazy sensitive to touch, and has one of the best cameras a tablet will ever see.

Moto, time to rethink your strategy.

Buy.

Motorola XYBOARD WiFi Tablets Available Today Starting at $399 is a post from: Droid Life

Remember earlier when we mentioned that it would make sense for Motorola to announce a XYBOARD WiFi (essentially a XOOM 2) during CES? It now looks like that is exactly what will happen thanks to an early pre-order posting of all 4 models on Motorola’s webstore. Both the 10.1″ and 8.2″ models in 32GB and 16GB sizes can be had at anywhere from $399 up to $599. The specs all match up to the 4G LTE variants that Verizon is selling, aside from the lack of an LTE radio that is. A note on each product page mentions that orders will ship the “week of 1/18.”  

You will probably also notice that the name “DROID” has been removed since they are not tied to Verizon. For whatever reason though, they did keep the name XYBOARD.

Via:  Motorola

Cheers omar!

XYBOARD WiFi Models Quietly Go Up for Pre-order at Motorola Store Ahead of CES is a post from: Droid Life