Droid Xyboard in Slick Box Design

Droid Xyboard in Slick Box Design

Even the Xyboards shipping box is futuristic with a serious, ready-for-business look.

Tab 10.1 vs. Xyboard 10.1

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is more rectangular than the Xyboard, which offers rounded edges covered in black-matte rubber.

Front and Rear Cameras

The Xyboard sports a 5 megapixel, rear-facing HD camera and 1.3 megapixel HD shutter in the front for video chat.

Xyboard Thin Frame

The Xyboard weighs a light 1.29 pounds and, at 0.34 inches thin, is comparable to the Tab 10.1.

Power, Volume Buttons

One thing we disliked right from the start was the power and volume buttons, which were rubber and practically recessed on the angled right side of the tablet. This made them hard to access and use.

Honeycomb

We still love Honeycomb’s ability to keep us multitasking and allow us to drop widgets on any of the Xyboard’s five customizable home screens.

Photo Gallery

The Xyboard Gallery imported photos that we had already stored in Picasa, many of which were instantly uploaded via the Google+ social network.

Xyboard Apps

Xyboard is clearly a business-oriented tablet and, as such, includes such applications as Citrix Receiver desktop virtualization and Citrix GoToMeeting. You can also see the option to use Fuze Meeting for collaboration.

Citrix GoToMeeting

Heres Citrix Go to Meeting loaded on the Xyboard.

Apps, Part Two

Here are more application choices. You can see a lot of Motorola and Verizon applications, along with some of the enterprise programs.

MotoCast Cloud Access

MotoCast is Motorola’s cloud computing application the lets users access music, movies and photos from work or home PCs on their tablet.

Polycom Conferencing

There is yet another video and Web conferencing application, this time from Polycom, which users can test for video chat on the Xyboard.

Evernote

We mentioned moveable widgets. We found one for the Evernote application, which goes with the Xyboard’s digital stylus. That’s right, like the HTC Evo View 4G and Jetstream, the Xyboard 10.1 features a stylus to let users write notes on the tablet in digital ink.

Xyboard Stylus

Behold, the Xyboard and its stylus are ready for action.

Note-Taking

We were not excited when trying out the stylus; we found it unwieldy in the hand.

Freestyle Finger Writing

We actually found it easier to write notes on the Xyboard tablet using our pointer finger.

Evernote Note-Taking Works Fine

We will say that Evernote’s cloud note-taking capabilities are great. When we logged in, it ported previous notes we’d taken while testing HTC Scribe-enabled tablets and made them accessible to us on the Xyboard.

Virtual Keyboard

The Xyboard’s virtual keyboard is well spaced and comfortable to type on.

Testing With Netflix

We decided to test the Xyboard’s screen with our old standby Netflix, which is included on the tablet. Note the Netflix Android application here, refurbished for Honeycomb tablets.

Parks & Recreation

After 10 seconds of initial graininess as the Xyboard adjusted to Netflix, the TV show “Parks & Recreation” played great on the IPS display. The playback quality was better than that of the Tab 10.1 and on par with that of the Jetstream.