Saturday, February 26, 2011

MOTOROLA XOOM NOW UP FOR PRE-ORDER FOR $800

Best Buy has started taking pre-orders for the upcoming Motorola Xoom Android tablet. The tablet will be available in stores on February 24th. The model that is currently up for pre-order is 3G-enabled and has a price tag of $799.99. Motorola has also confirmed that there will be a WiFi only version of Xoom, however, there is no word on the availability of that model.

Meanwhile Best Buy isn't the only retailer taking orders for Xoom. Wirefly is also taking orders for the same price. Both models are designed for use on Verizon's wireless network. It looks like Verizon has no plans to subsidize the tablet. The data plans associated with the tablet are month-to-month which means you can cancel any time. Plans run between $20 per month for 1GB of data and $80 per month for up to 10GB of data.

Interestingly the Best Buy ad mentions that customers will have to pay for at least one month of service even if they want to use the tablet as a WiFi-only device. And that is kind of funny because devices usually ship with WiFi activated. In this particular case it looks like WiFi will need to be 'activated' by paying an extra fee.