- the price of the XOOM will indeed be significantly less than $1,200 (at least according to Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha). In fact, if you decide to take the WiFi-only route, the tablet will cost just $600 - half of the price Best Buy put up (and subsequently took down). 3G connectivity will come with a $199 premium (jacking the price up to $799), though it's worth noting that the XOOM's radio will see an LTE upgrade sometime down the road.
Of course, there's probably one question on your mind: "How does this look next to Apple's pricing?" Well the cost of the WiFi-only model actually compares favorably - a 32 GB WiFi iPad costs $599, so the two tablets will be neck-to-neck. As for the 3G pricing, things are slightly less awesome - $799 is $70 more than a 3G-capable 32 GB iPad. However, it should be easy to see why the XOOM will cost more when the tablets' feature sets are put side by side; besides, the device is bound to see a price drop once it's been on the market for some time.
So, now that we know that the XOOM's price won't be overly extravagant, would you be willing to reconsider it? Or are you still firmly rooted amongst the haters?