Xoom Enters The Rings For Its Heavyweight Match With iPad

Verizon premiered it’s first spot to coincide with yesterday’s retail launch of their Motorola Xoom tablet. Is this tablet going to be an iPad killer? Or does the $800 price tag doom the Xoom?

The New York Times takes a good look at the features of this Android/Honeycomb powered (but largely iPad-inspired) device and comes to the conclusion that “It’s not crystal-clear at this point why the world needs all of these competing tablets, each with different operating systems and app stores. There’s not enough differentiation to justify the coming onslaught of models; most of these companies seem to cranking out tablets just so they can say, “We have an iPad thingie, too!”

While it is true that consumers may not need so many different platforms, it is undeniable that, at least for the early stages of this tablet age, they are certainly embracing all these new vehicles that allow them to connect, communicate and devour content whenever and wherever they want. As the tipping point for this tech is reached, if it hasn’t already, there will be more and more people wanting to say “I have an iPad thingie too!”.

For now, the Xoom looks like a worthy competitor and may end up joining the iPad for the long run.