Motorola Targets Families With Xoom Tablet

Motorola announced yesterday that they will be selling a Xoom tablet that will be geared towards families.  It will go on sale starting Sunday and will be exclusive to Best Buy.  It will retail for $379 and is basically the same hardware that the Xoom has been sporting all along with one exception.  It will only be available in a 16GB model (instead of 32GB's).  Motorola also said the tablet will come preloaded with some family friendly apps as well.  Apparently, this isn't an ongoing offer as the announcement also points out that this will be a limited time offer.

It's no surprise that Motorola is doing this.  With the release of the Kindle Fire, most of the tablet manufacturers have been forced to play their hand at price cutting to keep their products as relevant as possible in the sea of cheaper tablets.  Hopefully, this will help Motorola's position in the tablet market.  The Motorola Xoom was the first Honeycomb tablet on the market and was awesome.  However, it didn't take long for competitors to overshadow the Xoom with other offerings.

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Why will the Kindle Fire sell like crazy?

Amazon's Tablet Offering: Kindle Fire

With all of the rage in the tablet world right now buzzing around the announcement of Amazon's Kindle Fire, I wanted to discuss why Amazon's first attempt at a full fledged tablet will be a crazy success for them.  First up, is the price.  I mean for $200 bucks you get a fully functional tablet.  Now granted, it isn't a crazy powerful device but it is very practical for what it aims to do.  It's rocking a dual-core processor (not sure which one of speed); and only 8GB's of storage on the device itself.  And they are boasting about 8 hours of battery life.  All on a rather nice, and comfortable 7 inch screen.

What does the Kindle Fire not have?  Well, pretty much everything most tech folks look for in a tablet by the market standards nowadays.
-No 3G
-No expandable storage.
-No front or back cameras.
-No bluetooth.
-No HDMI
-And no GPS.

So, if it basically has a handful of features when compared with other tablets; why will it do so well?  In one, simple word: content.  What is one thing we all have in common, and we all soak as much of it up everyday as possible.  Whether it be news, internet sources, television, music, media, etc.  It is all considered some form of content.  And what better way could Amazon jump into the tablet market than by providing a small window into the heart of the entire business?  Whether it be selling ebooks, merchandise, mobile apps, or streaming video via the new Amazon Prime offering.  All made accessible with device that simply builds upon what the Kindle name is already good for: e-reading.  No doubt, they will already have a bunch of Kindle fans who are looking to upgrade, that is a given audience right there.  Without even having to sell the concept to those fans.

Personally, if this tablet does as well as I think it will.  I will start to recommend this device to those new to the tablet scene.  Seriously?  Since most people aren't going to harness the full processor power of their devices anyways.  I saw a demographic the other day that suggested most people use mobile devices for:
1- Web access and communicating via the web while on the go (social media).
2- Media consumption (YouTube, streaming media, etc.)
3- Apps.

And at it's very basic level the Kindle Fire seems to have those 3 features covered.  See their tv spot for a brief intro:

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Shadowgun released yesterday on iOS...But Not on Android yet?

Yesterday marked the release for Madfinger's Shadowgun.  Why is this game significant?  I can easily answer that question with the obvious.  It's absolutely gorgeous.  The graphics looks outstanding.  The game was built on the Unity 3D engine and is a cover based third person shooter for mobile devices.  Yep, that means it will run on smartphones and tablets equipped with the NVIDIA Tegra chipset (and currently on iDevices).

And as of yesterday, it is running on iPhones and iPad's.  According to TegraZone, we should expect to see the Android port sometime in October 2011.  For those who haven't heard of Madfinger yet, you should check them out if you have a device capable of running Samurai II: Vengeance.  Which is a gorgeous looking hack and slash, samurai game.

Here is the backstory for Shadowgun.  You play as John Slade (a strangle blend of Gears of War style with Bruce Willis); who is the universe's toughest bounty hunter.  And you are hired to hunt a Dr. Edgar Simon who controls a crazy, mutant army.

Nothing sounds to unique about the story.  But seriously, a mobile game that looks like this, screw the story.  I'll play it strictly for the visuals alone.  If you're still not sold, be sure to checkout the game's trailer:





Look for a full review once this game hits the Google Android Market!

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