AkbarAhmed.com

Much has been made recently of minute weight or thickness differences between various tablets. However, as any frequent tablet user will tell you, all tables are still to heavy to hold in one hang for long periods of time, and all are light enough to hold comfortably in two hands.

For example, the weight of various related and announced tablets are:
Apple iPad 1: 1.5 to 1.6 pounds
Motorola Xoom: 1.6 pounds
Apple iPad 2: 1.33 to 1.35 pounds
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1: 1.31 pounds

Looking at the weights above, we can see the difference between the heaviest and lightest tablet is only .29 pounds, or 131.54 grams.

When a tablet is released that is light enough to hold in one hand, then let’s start to talk about weight differences. Till then, you’ll be holding on with both Hands.

I’m going to give away the ending. After using Honeycomb I am hooked. I had planned on purchasing an iPad 2, but Honeycomb is a far superior operating system for my needs which are largely driven by content creation such as writing emails, editing Word documents, updating Excel files and the like.

I use a few apps constantly:

• email (to communicate with customers)
• Skype (to chat with employees)
• calendar (to schedule my day)
• Google search (to find just about everything)
• web browser (read news, etc.)

In fact, I probably spend 80% to 90% of my time using the “killer apps” listed above. What’s important, is Android 3 (aka Honeycomb) has a better user experience in these areas. It’s a given that the iPad has more apps, but those apps are not used during my work day. Yes, I use the tablet for work. For business use, Android and the Zoom dominate the iPad.

On Android 3, I can see emails and calendar appointments on my tablet home screen. There is no need to tap into email, check my emails, then tap out, then tap into my calendar. This simple tap, tap, tap on the iPad is a huge pain for me as I do it repeatedly while working.

Further, Google search (both text and voice search) are on my Android 3 home screen.

Android 3 even makes using the web faster and easier. I, like most people, visit a fixed list of sites everyday. With Android 3, my favorite web sites are visible on my home screen, so a single tap is all I need to read Quora, check the news, view LinkedIn Groups, check stock quotes and access a few other of my other everyday web sites.

So, why then won’t I purchase the Motorola Xoom? Or to be more accurate, why am I returning it? I’m not. While my original plan was to return the Xoom, I found it too useful to give it up. After careful consideration of how I plan to use a tablet, the Zoom ended up being the best device for business use.

Note:
I still dislike the power plug on the Xoom. Not the part that goes into the wall, but the part that goes into the Xoom. It is so flimsy that it will break, and I’ll end up with an $800 brick. Motorola should fix this fatal hardware flaw as I cannot simply walk into the local Xoom repair shop every time the power plug breaks off.