According to Motorola, the relatively high price of its Xoom tablet can be justified because the tablet will receive an update in the future that will allow it to handle LTE networks. At $799, the Xoom will be more expensive than the 32GB 3G iPad.
Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha left that know at the Mobile World Congress. The Xoom will only support 3G networks upon introduction, but the hardware present can handle LTE networks. Motorola will release a software update in the future to activate this 4G support. According to Jha, the single retail price of $ 799 is therefore justifiable. For comparison: Apple’s iPad 3G with 32GB of storage currently costs $729 in America.
Jha also said that the Wi-Fi-only version of the Xoom will cost about $599. This makes the price the same as the WiFi-only iPad that also has 32GB on board. Whether Motorola will also release a model with 16GB of storage to compete with the $499 iPad is not yet known. In the same interview, Jha also spoke about the Android ecosystem, accidentally referring to a Google music service. It has long been an open secret that Google is working on its own music service, but the company has never officially confirmed the arrival.
The Motorola Xoom will be available in the United States from February 24. Europe will follow in the second quarter of this year.