Motorola Xoom Is $800 with Locked Wi-Fi.

A leaked Best Buy ad revealed that rumors of a high price tag are true. The Motorola Xoom will be $800. By contrast, the 3G iPad that comes with twice as much storage is only $30 more. And to top it off, Apple still has many of cheaper models available starting at just $500, whereas there is only one choice if you want the Xoom. The fine print on the Best Buy ad reveals that Wi-Fi access with the device is locked down until the user purchases a minimum of one month of data subscription. That means those who wanted to get the Xoom free of contract and just use Wi-Fi will be forced to sign up for 3G.
 



To be fair, the Motorola Xoom is quite a powerful piece of hardware for a tablet. It has a dual-core processor, built-in NVIDIA graphics processing, 1 GB of RAM, HD video recording and the ability to upgrade to 4G. But we can also expect the equivalent of most of these features to show up in the iPad 2, which should get an official announcement in a matter of weeks. Motorola has mentioned plans to create a Wi-Fi-only version of the Xoom, which would presumably be cheaper. But there is no information on when it would be available. 

The Best Buy ad also revealed several other details. It confirmed the Feb. 24 launch date as well as the rates for data usage: $20 per month for 1 GB and up to $80 per month for 10 GB. Technews Daily