The Motorola XOOM tablet is expected to start shipping in the US next week. But you don’t have to wait that long to read the user manual and learn more about the tablet and the Google Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system that runs on it.
The folks at Droid-Life have posted the manual online. While there aren’t many surprises tucked away in the manual’s 64 pages, there are a lot of photos and plenty of information on how to use the tablet. That’s not to say you need to read the whole thing from start to finish to use Andorid 3.0. Honestly, most of this stuff is pretty intuitive. But it’s nice to have a detailed user guide available.
The manual did verify a few things for me though:
- The battery is non user-replaceable, and Motorola says you could damage (ie, void the warranty) by trying to replace it yourself.
- The Android Market in Honeycomb has been redesigned to take advantage of the extra real estate on Android tablets.
- The XOOM will support Android’s WiFi hotspot and USB tethering features, letting you share your 3G connection with multiple devices, although I suspect your wireless carrier may impose an extra fee to use these features.
- You can force a reboot by holding the Power/Lock key and the up-volume key for three seconds, which is handy since you can’t remove the battery.
I also find it interesting that Motorola feels the need to warn users to choose apps from the Market carefully and check ratings before installing them — even if they come from the Android Market in order to avoid spyware, viruses, or apps that may drain the battery quickly. That’s not something I can see Apple worrying about since the company has much tighter controls over the apps that make it into the App Store.
Another fun tip? “If you can’t see the screen while wearing sunglasses, take them off.”