Motorola Xoom 4G upgrades hit Thursday, new models Oct. 13
updated 05:20 pm EDT, Wed September 28, 2011
Motorola, Verizon at last ship LTE Xooms
Motorola matched a promise it made almost nine months ago and said it would start offering the Xoom 4G upgrade starting Thursday. Owners of the original 3G Android tablet on Verizon can send it into Motorola and get it sent back with LTE built-in inside of six business days. As promised, the upgrade is free and doesn't require a change in whatever data plan the customer has.
The addition boosts speeds to a claimed average of 5-12Mbps downstream and 2-5Mbps up, although better conditions can take it higher.
Verizon will also be carrying a Xoom with 4G built-in. Just called the Xoom 4G, it's identical to the upgraded version with the exception of a preloaded Box.net app for access to cloud storage. The tablet costs $500 on a two-year data contract and will ship October 13, although new customers will need to get a data plan starting at $30 for 2GB.
