Field trip for the Xoom

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My primary acquiring a Xoom, was to allow me to travel and work more productively while traveling.

I already mentioned the VC and second screen bonus, but yesterday was a good opportunity to put it through it's paces and test it on a "field" trip.

Yesterday, I traveled from home to Heathrow (taxi) to Munchen (fly) to Salzburg (train), had a long (productive) meeting and came back the same route.

All in all, I travelled about 12 hours + 3 hours of meeting, and during the travelling I was working on the Xoom most of the time. So, it was working hard!

The key observations were:

  • The Xoom's battery life pretty much matched the Nexus S. At 10am, power was down to 75% on both devices, 60% at noon, 40% at 3pm and dead about 6pm (12 hours into the day). I could replace the battery in the Nexus S with a spare, but that's not an option on the Xoom.
  • The screen and display of the Xoom was beautiful and always usable in all light conditions.
  • The folding case disappointed me a bit. I nearly dropped it while trying to remove it once.
  • I at one point needed to resolve a couple of critical issues back in the office, and the Xoom allowed me to access the SFDC data and other online resources I needed (some spreadsheets etc) to do all.
  • My wifi-only Xoom really pairs well with the wifi-hotspot that my Nexus can be. 
  • While Google docs don't have full offline authoring capabilities, I had to resort to something else. I've tried a few things, but in the end Dato's GTask offline/online task app for Android, served me best.
  • I initially thought I could do the trip with just my wallet, Xoom & passport, but eventually left with my light backpack, to also carry my jacket, my spare battery, sunglasses, a book and a few other bits... so although I was travelling light, I wonder if I really travelled much lighter than I would have been with just my Macbook or Chromebook.


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