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[Q] Motorola Xoom - to Buy or NOT to Buy?

OK, so I am about to receive a nice little bonus from my company here in London UK! I will come out the other side with just over £500.
my question is: Should I take the plunge and buy the Xoom?
some info:
1. This buy is purely to spoil myself. I dont 'need' a tablet. I have a PS3, HDTV, killer HP laptop , etc! (btw crysis 2 out this Friday...yay! )
2. No, I dont want an Ipad. (yes I have used/owned an iphone before...3GS)
3. Yes, I have an android phone (HTC Desire HD...R00t'd n Rom'd)
4. Yes I want honeycomb
5. I dont have any experience with motorola products. are they any good?
6. Samsung's 10.1 Galaxy tab seems to be a contender as well. Samsung's products are nicely spec'd but they have a tendency to feel cheap/plastic-eeey.
So i'm putting myself in the hands of XDA!
Help me decide please! and if you could elaborate (not just Yes or No) that would be fantastic! If its a NO, what are my options for tablets? (minus the Ipad)
THANX!

LOL...36 views....and No replies!

I'd be impressed if you could get a Xoom for £500 given that, right now, they're exclusive to deals on Verizon so you'd have to buy someone out of a contract on that and cover the cost of import??
When it arrives in the UK I suspect it's price will exceed £500 by some margin - it's likely to compete with an iPad2 3G and the UK's sim-free/unlocked market isn't noted for bargains (and the lock-in prices on the old Galaxy Tab remain silly even now).

somewhatdog said:
I'd be impressed if you could get a Xoom for £500 given that, right now, they're exclusive to deals on Verizon so you'd have to buy someone out of a contract on that and cover the cost of import??
When it arrives in the UK I suspect it's price will exceed £500 by some margin - it's likely to compete with an iPad2 3G and the UK's sim-free/unlocked market isn't noted for bargains (and the lock-in prices on the old Galaxy Tab remain silly even now).
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Xoom is scheduled for UK release 1st week of April. PCworld announced they will stock it sim/contract free for £500. Thats the Wifi only version ofcourse.
£600 for 3G/wifi @ the carphone warehouse

Budget smartphones are getting more awesome

I know all the tech sites and forums and whatnot always rave about the newest flagship device and seem to ignore even well specced budget phones, especially region or carrier specific ones. I am on T-mobile but am constantly checking out the new phones available on AT&T since T-mobile phones suck in general. There are some amazing budget phones that are almost as well specced and even better built, costing half the price, with 1/100 the publicity. Earlier in the year I bought a Pantech burst for one of my relatives. It only cost $200 on eBay. It was super smooth and fast, and the AMOLED screen made it pop. I was always playing with it and comparing it to my $450 HTC One X. The One X was actually slower, and the screen didn't feel as resilient. The camera was much better, but besides that, I couldn't really find any reason to justify the 2x++ cost.
Today I went to go play with more phones. AT&T has two new budget phones. The LG Escape and the Pantech Flex. They are both running a dual-core S4 and lightly skinned and super fast. Both have qHD displays at 4.3" with top tier IPS and AMOLED displays. At that screen size, 720p wouldn't have made much a difference for me or most people, and it's a perfect hand-holding size. I find it just as usable as the 4.8" S III, and even easier and faster than the cumbersome 5.3" Note I am currently rocking. The cameras are only marginally worse than top flagship phones, and they come with NFC and even big batteries. The LG Escape is a standout with 2150mah battery and a really great feeling curved and thin build that's grippy and rather seamess and unbroken. The petite size with very narrow bezels also makes it stand out. LTE is a given. Both devices are literally brand new just came out and you can easily find them on eBay for $250. I'm really digging the LG Escape and get more and more annoyed thinking about the $520 I dropped a couple months ago to get the international Galaxy Note in my pocket that is slow and clunky and big. And no it's not about price depreciation and tech obsolescence. The Note still costs $520 even today, and most flagship phones of yesteryear are still expensive on eBay.
Last year the difference between high-end and budget was more dramatic since the cameras were way better on the high-end side and you got dual-core instead of single core. The screens were also terrible with WVGA and poor viewing angles and colors. This year is very different. Budget phones have the same blazing S4 krait processor that the high-end has, with all the same NFC, GPS, bluetooth, and everything else under the sun. The cameras have not improved much at the high-end whereas the lower-end has caught up and is nipping at their heels. Build quality is even better on the low-end in many cases (cough S III cough), and they always have removable batteries and microSD slots to expand their pitiful 4GB of memory. In a month, the LG Escape and Pantech Flex will probably drop to $200. The S III and One X are both still super expensive. This year at least, the tortoise has caught up to the hare, and budget-conscious consumers should be aware how great the lower end offerings are this year, and not be afraid to save a ton of money. It's not every year the fastest processor available becomes commoditized for budget phones and carriers are forcing LTE and big batteries into everything from low to high.

This is true. Just look at the Droid RAZR M and Atrix HD and HTC One XL. All $100 on contract
Sent from my DROID2 using xda premium

I noticed too, now it's making purchasing decisions harder.
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This is true. Just look at the Droid RAZR M and Atrix HD and HTC One XL. All $100 on contract
EDIT: I noticed you said the HTC One X is super expensive. This is not quite true, as I stated above, is priced at a budget level. It's also only $20 on contract through Amazon Wireless
Sent from my DROID2 using xda premium

I work at at&t and no way the one x is slower benchmarks are wayyy faster on oneX but ya At&t doesbt have any bad phones out really they are all cool in their own way
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app

Kflan22 said:
I work at at&t and no way the one x is slower benchmarks are wayyy faster on oneX but ya At&t doesbt have any bad phones out really they are all cool in their own way
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
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NO WAY!
Well howdy Kflan22

I recently bought a brand dual core phone, with 4.3" ips screen, 1gb RAM ! 540x960 resolution and so on for 191 USD. And running so smooth.
It's a ZTE V970...not bad at all.

Yeah the Droid Razr M is a phone I'd buy! If it wasn't on Verizon...

Kflan22 said:
I work at at&t and no way the one x is slower benchmarks are wayyy faster on oneX but ya At&t doesbt have any bad phones out really they are all cool in their own way
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
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Wasn't really talking about benchmarks. Just general UI smoothness. The Burst felt a lot smoother, even within apps.
I'm basing these on eBay prices. Why would you want to lock yourself to a contract when you can save so much on monthly fees with a no-contract plan? I don't really pay attention to those Amazon Wireless or Best Buy or special sales because they all have a catch, and you usually have to be a new customer for the best deals.
The One X is still a good $350 for a new one on eBay.
I would not consider the Razr M a budget phone. It doesn't fall under $200. In fact, it's like over $450 on eBay. You could buy it on contract for $100, but the same goes for a lot of other flagship phones. The contract price usually doesn't correlate directly with the second-hand market price, so even if the Razr M dropped to free on contract, it would still be $400+. It only goes down over time. It's strange because if a phone is perceived as a budget phone like the Flex or the Escape, even if it has a $400+ MSRP, it will be a paltry $200 or less from the get go on eBay. It's all perception, even though the MSRP is probably right and the difference between the budget and flagship phone is really only $100-150 to buy retail as well as wholesale, people think they gotta price it way low since its budget.
It's kind of amazing how something like the Atrix HD, which is even faster/bigger/better than the original Razr on Verizon, is priced lower at around $300 new. The old Razr still commands $350+ for a new one. The Razr M still has qHD and the same internals as the Atrix HD but is a good $150 more. Yeah these are all eBay prices. Since the Atrix HD was launched as a budget $99 phone, even though the MSRP is probably only $100 difference at most from both old and new flagship phones, people will sell it much lower. Ditto for other budget phones that have an even bigger price disparity and sell for under $200.
It sucks if you have a budget phone and want to sell it used and get the most out of what the claimed MSRP is, but find out it sells for less than half that new and even less used. The on-contract price you paid is not a good measure of the phone's wholesale value the carrier paid since whether free or up to $200, the expensive contract plans make up for the difference and then some. That's how they can afford to drop everything to a penny on sale days, although they would of course love you to get the crappiest cheapest smartphone anyway. If you plan on buying these budget phones of course from eBay, and their perceived value drops them like a stone, it's a steal.
This minor difference between budget and high-end is gonna get much worse with Windows 8. They are all literally 1.5Ghz S4 Krait with 1GB RAM. Will a slightly better camera and a slightly bigger size/resolution screen really justify the over 2x price premium for a flagship?

we'll see

itsalexaye90 said:
Yeah the Droid Razr M is a phone I'd buy! If it wasn't on Verizon...
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dang them verison, built in sims...

You get what you pay for.

I think a good budget phone with good specs as far as i search, sony experia tipo. Try to check it out in the web.

Definitely better if "budget" phones are simply last gen flagships. It would make for much better compatibility down the road.

That LG looks nice but I have a couple of friends LG phones and they have a lot of little issues so I'm a little gun shy of them right now.
I think we're starting to hit a sweet spot for phone tech. Jelly Bean runs great on a dual core phone with 1 gig so you don't need new tech for a nice phone.

I totally agree, just seeing the Galaxy S III on MetroPCS is pretty amazing. I know its kind of off topic, but it still surprises me.

i think a phone with s4 cpu and 1 gb of ram do the job for a year or two ...

mohammad13 said:
i think a phone with s4 cpu and 1 gb of ram do the job for a year or two ...
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It depends on the user. Not everyone would afford or even like to change phone after a year or two..

I have been looking at some of the Pantech phones as well. I havent pulled the trigger because I havent found much information on durability and reliability.

well for me i always prefer budget phones in general .. i don't like to spend much money on a phone that i could whack or loss any moment...

I want to sell my RMA tablet

I'm just so done. I dont care and want my money back. Screen issues, sound, charging, laggy rom.
How much would an unopened wifi tablet go for and where should i sell it.

Swappa.com. see how much they go for there.
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Swappa.com would be a start or maybe reddit's techswap sub. But you can expect to not get very much for them as you won't be the only one doing this.

Jeez it's not that bad! Loving my Shield!

Another note to the OP: Screen/Sound/Charging issues shouldn't be an issue with your new tablet (or else, swap it out if you get a defective one), and I've found the 5.1.1 firmware/ROM to be quite snappy.
When you try to sell one of these, a lot of buyers will be suspicious that the article in question has one of the bad batteries... may make for lower prices on Swappa etc..
Marc

im going to be doing the same. I have the LTE version but I want to jump to a bigger screen instead. Going to sell it right when I receive the replacement BNIB. probably swappa and reddit will be the best places. ebay fees are way too high

Keep in mind the RMA replacements aren't apparently necessarily "new." Many of the communications have referred to them as refurbished. Thus, if you sell it, it should be listed as Mint. But not BNIB.

Planning on selling mine too. I'm moving on the Dell Venue 10 7000

I'm in the same boat... I want to get rid of that thing.
Dell XPS 13 will be the replacement.
A shame I've spent so much money on Tegra optimized games

Always the next tab from Nvidia if they continue to make one or other brands using their socs...

i'm looking for a Shield tab LTE if anyone is selling on swappa

Budget (~€239/$199/£189) phone to replace stolen handset?

@MOD Posting here specifically instead of the OnePlus X forum, as I am looking for unbiased advice from the community - please do not move this thread to a forum for a specific handset.
My OnePlus X was stolen by a taxi driver about 5 weeks ago, and I have exhausted every avenue of recovering it, Android Device history, the Police, etc. I know this is not a flagship device, but is probably the best handset I have owned, and absolutely adored it, not least because of the build quality, premium feel, and responsiveness.
I looked through the completed listings on eBay using a third party website, and from those set myself a maximum price I was prepared to pay, that I would feel I had gotten a good deal from after sniping. It would take a bit longer than replacing the OPX outright, but paying less would at least take some of the sting out of paying for the phone twice!
The main appeal of the OPX to was that although it was not quite as good as a flagship, in my eyes it almost was, and for much, much less expense. 'Best bang for buck' if you will'. I like hardware that falls into this category.
Since then, I have discovered the Moto G4 Plus. It seems to beat the OPX on every front, apart from having an IPS display rather than AMOLED, and what I have read is a slightly less powerful processor - but with the added benefits of 4 cores and fast charging.
GSM Arena comparison of both handsets
Is the Moto G4 Plus the way to go here, and if so any particular version to make sure I order?
Amazon UK have it here:
Motorola Moto G4 Plus 16GB SIM-Free Smartphone - Black (Single SIM) - (Exclusive to Amazon)
Dual SIM would be handy for my work number, but it seems they only have it for that price dual sim in white? Handy, but not at the price of a white phone which I hate, like my work iPhone!
Again, please do not move this thread to Moto G4 or OPX forum, as I would like independent advice - perhaps there is another handset I should be considering?

Anyone on this?

Buy used OnePlus 8T or wait for OnePlus 9 / 9 Pro?

So backstory, I found a really good deal on Facebook Marketplace for a OnePlus 8T (US Version unlocked from Amazon) for $370. It's in excellent condition, is paid off, and seems to be the unlocked KB2005 model.
Since the phone is basically half off at that price, I'm super tempted by it. However, the other part of me almost wants to wait for the inevitable OnePlus 9/9 Pro announcements in March and maybe get that one of those on launch. I also had the idea of selling my current phone or the 8T if I'm impressed by either model. That's where I thought I'd come to XDA to ask for advice on what I should do, or if anyone has other ideas!
I currently own a 6T that I got on launch in 2018 and I absolutely love it. It still works well, but being a big tech enthusiast is making me start to get an itch to upgrade soon (especially since my dad just got a Galaxy S21 and was really impressed just helping him set it up).
Thanks all!

I also was on the fence with ditching my 6T for this one, but it's quite an upgrade in almost every way. Once you experience how fluid the screen refresh is, there is no going back. I scored mine on a trade-in promo. Wouldn't pay full retail for it, tho. Seems like a really good deal at that price point. 9 series is going to be very expensive at first, so factor that in. If anything, grab 8T and see if t-mobile is going to be running trade-in promos on them (9 series). You can always sell it on swappa for more if you don't like it.

RussianBear said:
I also was on the fence with ditching my 6T for this one, but it's quite an upgrade in almost every way. Once you experience how fluid the screen refresh is, there is no going back. I scored mine on a trade-in promo. Wouldn't pay full retail for it, tho. Seems like a really good deal at that price point. 9 series is going to be very expensive at first, so factor that in. If anything, grab 8T and see if t-mobile is going to be running trade-in promos on them (9 series). You can always sell it on swappa for more if you don't like it.
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You bring up a good point there regarding trade in deals. I'd also imagine that T-Mobile is bound to have a deal for the 9 Series. I got my 6T on their original trade in deal in 2018 where you could trade the OG OnePlus One and get $300 off the 6T. It was a no brainer, since I essentially got full value for a 4 year old phone.

Do you recommend oneplus 8t or is better wait?
Hi there, unfortunately my actual phone stoped working and I came back for my backup phone.
So I'm looking for a new phone and in this moment we can find Oneplus 8t for around $500.
Do you think that is a good deal? Or is better wait for a possible oneplus 9 lite with SD 870?
After watch and read many reviews, I did a list with the principal points. Can you tell me if the list match with your real usage?
here are the good things that I observed:
+Screen
+Battery
+Fast Charger 65w
+Dual speaker
+Oxygen Os
In other side:
- Others chargers doesn't look work well
- No SD 865 Plus
- Regular camera

last month traded my Tmo OP7T (with $90 balance, so i paid it off) with Tmo OP8T, paid $0 out of pocket, and it actually lowered my monthly by $20/mo. Tmo still valued the OP7T for $750. So, new phone, lower monthly