Motorola Xoom set to launch in first week of April

Tablet war heats up as Motorola, Acer and Asus go head to head

Motorola has confirmed to V3.co.uk that it will release the highly anticipated Xoom tablet in the UK next week, as competition in the portable device market kicks off.

The Xoom will go head-to-head with fellow Android 3.0 Honeycomb device the Asus Eee Pad Transformer and the Windows 7-based Acer Iconia W500, and is likely to be the most high profile device of the three.

Motorola will ship the Xoom with a 10.1in HD widescreen with a resolution of 1,280 x 800. Key features include the Android Honeycomb interface, which has been redesigned specifically for use on tablets.

The tablet is powered by an Nvidia Tegra 2 1GHz dual-core processor together with 1GB of RAM. Other hardware specifications include a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, 2-megapixel front-facing camera, 32GB of internal storage, micro-SD card support and HDMI output.

Connectivity-wise the device will come with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, while 3G connectivity is optional.

The Xoom was launched in the US without Flash support, but it is believed that this has been added in time for the UK launch.

Preloaded applications will include Gmail, Google Docs, Microsoft Exchange and Quickoffice, so business users will be able to synchronise emails as well as view and edit presentations, spreadsheets and word documents out of the box.

Motorola touts up to 10 hours of video playback or browsing over Wi-Fi, up to nine hours of browsing over 3G and a standby time of approximately two weeks.

Users can pre-order a 3G Motorola Xoom from Carphone Warehouse, with the SIM-free version priced at £599. This will include a charging dock worth £34.99.

An equivalent SIM-free 32GB 3G iPad 2 from Apple is slightly cheaper at £579, but the Xoom does have Flash support and slightly higher specifications.

Three and TalkTalk are the only operators offering subsidised contracts for the Xoom at present, the cheapest rolling contract requiring customers to pay £10.22 a month for 1GB of internet allowance.

Meanwhile, PC World is offering a Wi-Fi only 32GB model for £499, which is also £20 more than the equivalent iPad 2.