Here’s the jist: Honeycomb OS, in it’s current state, isn’t for the new-to-tablet technology user.  If you’re a power user of an Android Phone, you’ll find yourself right at home. If you’re an iPad user that has made any investment into Apps, go iPad2.  It’s pretty simple, Honeycomb and it’s hardware requirements bring a lot to the table that the current iPad doesn’t.  The iPad2 will obviously bring, and most likely exceed, some of those shortcomings.

One of my biggest concerns was the shape of the device, this isn’t a 4:3 screen size like the iPad, it’s 16:9 screen ratio.  What this means is that the screen is significantly wider than it is tall.  This is great for HD video but not for other more routine tasks, such as typing.  I spent a great deal of my time typing using it’s native orientation and rotated 90 degrees.  Typing in it’s native orientation caused some hand cramping as I was struggling to extend my fingers to reach the center keys of the on screen QWERTY and hold onto the device.  I cannot see typing for any length of time like this.  Rotating the device 90 degrees caused the keyboard to feel extremely cramped.  However, with any new technology, it’s something most people will get used to.

The XOOM definitely felt heavier than the iPad and it is by almost a 50grams/0.11lbs.  Couple the weight increase with the wide screen form factor and the device feels like it’ll be difficult to ‘toss around’.  I use that phrase loosely .  I state this because the iPad is easy to tote around and one hand.

I noticed a couple differentiators of how Honeycomb handles Apps written for phones vs. how iOS handles this on the iPad.  There were 12 “Tablet Apps” in the Android Market when I browsed through the Honeycomb Market App.  This means, early adopters will be required to the Phone version of their favorite apps on Honeycomb.  I tested to see how it compared to it’s iOS counterpart.  I first installed Angry Birds, followed by Words with Friends, and Facebook.  Angry Birds rendered across the entire screen, no emulation, no borders, nothing – full screen goodness.  Words with Friends offered what was most surprising and attractive functionality.  First you must understand how iOS on the iPad handles this, iPhone specific apps are rendered in an emulation window, that is, essentially an on screen iPhone display.  Honeycomb handles this differently, in my limited testing.  Words with Friends opened and I assumed it would run in the rotated resolution, similar to the iPad.  I immediately rotated the device, only to find it rendered in the native position and rotated properly as you rotated the XOOM.  I LOVED this. You aren’t forced to hold the device a certain way to utilize legacy apps.

I gave the Camera/Video recording App a run through and recorded a short video to edit in the new Movie Studio App.  Ironically, upon trying to add the clip to the Movie project timeline, Movie Studio force stopped on me.  Re-opening and going through the same steps yielded the expected result of fluid video editting.

Next up I fired up the Chrome browser and ran through a number of websites to see how it handled rendering full web content.  Engagdet pointed out in their review, that the many webpages rendered their mobile version.  While this issue existed when the iPad originally launch, I don’t see this as a ‘major issue’ as most mobile sites have a link to their “Full Site Version” / “Desktop Version”.  Oddly enough, neither Twitter or Facebook sent the XOOM to their mobile and touch sites.

1st party Google Apps, as you’d expect, are top notch and beautiful. No further explanation required here.   If you’re a heavy Google Services user, this alone could make the decision for you.

A couple of rumors and questions that were on my mind.

Q. WiFi only version, where the heck is it?

A. It’ll be released ‘soon’, however will not be sold through Verizon and will not be Verizon branded.  That’s obvious.

Q. 4G upgrade, do I really have to send it somewhere?

A. 4G upgrade is free, however requires you to send in your XOOM and be without it for a minimum of a week, “could be longer depending on demand”. So I have to be without my tablet, which I use daily, for a minimum of 7 days?

I think I can sum it up by saying it this way; I was less excited after I left than I was when I walked in the door.

The XOOM and specifically Android Honeycomb up the ante as an iPad competitor, but with the iPad2 announcement next week on March 2nd, I can’t see a silver bullet to say get the XOOM now as the iPad2 will likely offer competitve hardware specs and hopefully a new revision of iOS that will bring some new features and changes to multitasking.  Apple does have an advantage of releasing their 2nd generation tablet, while worthy competitors such as the XOOM, G-Slate, and other Honeycomb tablets are just now launching.  I do see a major advantage that Apple has: iTunes.  Not from a music or app store perspective, but from a device management perspective.  The ability to backup/restore and manipulate the device from your PC or Mac is a feature that needs to come to Honeycomb.  Without it, users requiring device replacement, etc will be out of luck when their data disappears along the way.

I speculate that Apple will be enhancing and potentially rebranding their MobileMe offering to compete with the Cloud services coming with HP’s TouchPad.  We’ll see next week.