The Motorola Xoom is the first real competitor to Apple’s wildly popular iPad. The Xoom has hardware specs better than the new iPad 2 and it is one of the first tablets to run the new Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) operating system, so we were excited to take a look. Our review unit was the 32 GB Verizon model of the Xoom.

As shown in Figure 1, our Xoom box was slightly damaged, but the sturdy cardboard box kept the contents in pristine condition. Figure 2 shows the contents of the box, which include the Xoom, a charging cable, a USB cable, and a small brochure called “Master Your Device.” Don’t expect this small brochure to do what the title suggests. It is really just a very basic “Getting Started Guide.” If you want to master this device, you will have to download the User Guide from the Motorola website.

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Figure 1: The Xoom box

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Figure 2: The contents of the box

The plug on the charging cable folds down for better transportability. You will note, however, that the charging cable plugs into a wall outlet. Unlike some other tablets, this device cannot be charged through the USB cable, but must be plugged into a wall outlet.