Motorola has unveiled two new Android tablets. The XOOM 2 and XOOM 2 Media Edition will feature 10.1 inch and 8.2 inch displays, respectively. But for the most part the rest of the specs are the same no matter which tablet you get.
They both feature 1.2 GHz dual core processors, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage. They have 1.3MP front-facing cameras and 5MP rear cameras, and both will ship with Google Android 3.2 Honeycomb — although I wouldn’t be surprised to see an Ice Cream Sandwich update in the future.
Since the XOOM 2 is larger, there’s space for a higher capacity battery and Motorola is promising 10 hours of battery life. The Smaller Xoom 2 Media Edition, on the other hand, should be good for about 6 hours of run time.
The XOOM 2 measures 10″ x 6.8″ x 0.35″ and weighs 1.3 pounds. The Media Edition tablet measures 8.5″ x 5.5″ x 0.35″ and weighs 0.85 pounds.
The original XOOM was the first tablet to ship with Android 3.0 Honeycomb and it was basically the first Google-approved Android tablet. But sales have been pretty underwhelming in recent months. It should be interesting to see if the new tablets manage to drum up any additional interest, but it’s hard to make any predictions until we know how much the tablets will cost.
They’re expected to sell for around €400 in the UK and Ireland where they’ll be available at Carphone Warehouse, Best Buy, Dixons, and other retailers later this month. But there’s no word on US availability or pricing.
Overall the new tablets look like modest upgrades to the original XOOM from a hardware standpoint. . They’re lighter and feature faster processors and Motorola promises 20 percent better graphics performance. Motorola is also offering a digital stylus for the tablets, and playing up the high quality speakers in the Media Edition.
There’s also new software, including  a MOTOPRINT feature that lets you send jobs to a printer from the tablet. The XOOM 2 is positioned the more business-friendly of the two tablets, with Citrix Receiver and GoToMeeting software preloaded. Both tablets also have MotoCast software for streaming media from a PC or Mac to your mobile device.
I wish Xoom 2 were a pure Google experience device.Â