Motorola Comes Out Swinging at CES 2011

CNet's Molly Wood after Motorola keynote.

It's January. Your friendly neighborhood TechBender is so happy that he continually looks like he has to pee. You see, January means one great thing for gadget geeks, the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Today was Press Day at CES, where global manufacturers showed off their new, innovative, must have tech gadgets. As soon as the TechBender left the gym, he tuned into CNet TV on his iPhone and caught up on what happened in Las Vegas today.

The original plan, because there's always a plan, was to keep an eye on CES all week and give you great people a rundown of the gadgets that are coming to market. But, Motorola changed the plan.

If you've been paying attention, many times the TechBender has talked about the rise of tablet devices and the fact that Apple cornered the market. As recently as last month, the TechBender suggested you wait until 2011 if you didn't want an iPad. Whether you like Apple or no, when the iPad was released last April, competitors were caught flat-footed. Ok. I'll admit it. They were caught with their pants down. With a large screen, apps, instant on, and The App Store, the iPad changed the game. The small number of tablets released in 2010 just weren't up to par and didn't offer the value you get with iPad. Google said this year the current Android operating system, Froyo, was not optimized for tablet use; yet we see the Galaxy Tab and others trying to generate some revenue.

Well, I'm happy to report, Motorola may have taken eleven months to release a tablet, but they were eleven months well spent. Tonight, during the Motorola keynote, the Motorola Xoom was announced. And from what the TechBender saw, IT IS SWEET!

In partnership with Verizon, the Xoom is a 10" screen tablet that will run Google's upcoming Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system (OS) that is optimized for tablet use. With a hefty and powerful dual core processor, this means smooth running when using 3D Google Maps or participating in live video chat on Google Talk using either the front or rear facing camera. And for my followers who are Apple naysayers, I have outstanding news for you, Adobe Flash will come installed. (cue stadium cheering here...) With a first quarter release, you might be hesitant to move to a first generation device, even with all these great features. Well, Motorola took this announcement one step further. The intial tablets will have 3G installed. Later in the year, they plan to release 4G tablets. Guess what? The 3G tablets are upgradeable to 4G. How cool is that! Look out Apple, the competition has finally arrived.

Stay tuned for more news from CES as cool gadgets are announced.