Gigaom: Motorola introduced two new Xoom-branded slates for the U.K and Ireland markets on Thursday, with availability later this month. The Xoom 2 and Xoom 2 Media Edition both run on Google’s Android platform for tablets, but won’t ship with Android 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich. Didn’t Motorola learn from its ill-fated original Xoom tablet?
Droid Life - If you were looking for information about the next OTA update for a phone on Verizon, a reddit user by the name of DroidTosser has you covered. His latest post that went up within the last hour, gives us details for updates on just about every VZW device currently available. We’ll start first with the screenshot you are seeing above which talks Ice Cream Sandwich, but won’t stop there as the info is plentiful.
Pocket-Lint: The HTC One X and One S are not the only pair debuting today, as the 3G + Wi-Fi versions of the Motorola XOOM 2 and Motorola XOOM 2 Media Edition go on sale.
Available from Carphone Warehouse, the main difference between the two models is the size of the screen with the XOOM 2 sporting a 10.1-inch HD widescreen display and the Media Edition a smaller 8.2-inch.
Both tablets are considerably lighter than the original Motorola XOOM and run on Android 3.2 Honeycomb.
Honeycomb? My Xoom 1 runs ICS, why doesn't Xoom 2 run it?
Edit: Oh, this is the UK. Is ICS even out over there?
Pocket-Lint: It's interesting timing that, having been the first out of the blocks with the original Honeycomb tablet, and having been the Google approved launch tablet, the original Motorola Xoom is now nearly a year old.
The hardware has aged, the software has updated and Android tablets have evolved, slightly. It is in that little band of "slightly" that the Xoom 2 lies. Are there enough changes to make the Xoom 2 more appealing than the original? Certainly. But is there enough of a change to make this tablet more appealing than it's rivals from the likes of Asus or Samsung?
