With the BlackBerry Playbook and Nexus S 4G on their way to Sprint early next month, the WiFi-only Motorola Xoom may tag along as well. Expected to launch on May 8th, Sprint’s upcoming phone and tablet portfolio will certainly prove to be quite the challenger this year.
The introduction of the WiFi-Only Xoom isn’t all that surprising, as we’d previously heard that it would land on Sprint before the WiMAX version, and we’ll likely see the tablet bundled with a mobile hotspot, like Verizon did with the iPad. While it’s not the most beautiful solution, it gets the job done. However, we’re still scratching our heads as to why Sprint will be offering the WiFi-only version of the Xoom at all.
The reception of the tablet is hardly what Motorola was likely hoping for, and Sprint could just be doing them a solid. While it’s possible that this deal was inked out of the gate, Motorola needs Sprint to sell the tablet more than the carrier needs to offer it. As always, hindsight is 20/20, but it would be interesting to see if the reception of the Xoom would be any better if Motorola offered a 16GB version of the tablet when it debuted in February. Not only would this challenge the iPad in on more than one level, it would just be smart.
Another outlet for the Xoom to be sold can only be a good thing at this point, and hopefully the WiMAX variant won’t be too far off. For now, we’d go with a wait and see approach. While unlikely, if Sprint prices the Xoom competitively against Verizon’s, Motorola’s sales may begin to, well, actually sell.
I like the Xoom and Honeycomb a lot, but with few options of the tablet, and the OS still undercooked, Motorola’s attempt to take on the iPad has fumbled so far.
[Via: Gadgetell]