Wi-Fi Motorola Xoom To Sell For $599

Motorola says it’s Xoom tablet, featuring Wi-Fi only connectivity, goes on sale March 27 for $599, for a unit with 32 GB of memory. That’s the same price as a 32 GB Wi-Fi only Apple iPad 2.

Motorola said a number of U.S. retailers will sell the device, including Amazon.com, Best Buy, Costco, RadioShack, Sam's Club, Staples and Walmart.

Competing with the iPad 2, the Xoom is a 10.1-inch widescreen HD tablet with the Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system.

Motorola Mobility’s Vice president of retail sales, Dan Papalia, says the Xoom is the first tablet to run on Android 3.0, giving it an edge in the marketplace.

Expanding choices

"We are now continuing to expand the choices available to consumers with the Motorola XOOM Wi-Fi,” Papalia said.

The fact that Motorola has matched Apple’s price could signal even lower prices to come, as the two companies compete for consumers. On the other hand, there may not be all that much wiggle room.

HIS iSupply recently completed a tear-down analysis of the iPad 2 and said the components of the device cost Apple $325.60 per unit. It found that the A5 chip that powers the iPad 2 is 75 percent more expensive than the A4 chip in the original iPad.

Breaking even?

Pascal-Emmanuel Gorby, a technology writer for Business Insider, speculates that Apple may be barely breaking even on the 16 GB iPad 2s it sells for $499. It can do that, he says, because Apple expects to sell the bulk of the units through it’s Apple Stores, saving the normal retailers’ mark-up.

In promoting its Xoom, Motorola notes that its tablet supports a Beta of Adobe Flash Player 10.2 downloadable from Android Market, enabling the delivery of Flash based web content including videos, casual games and rich Internet applications. Apple does not support that platform.

In addition, Motorola says the Xoom table supports the latest Google Mobile services, including Google Maps 5.0 with 3D interaction and access to more than three million Google eBooks and apps from Android Market.