Motorola Xoom Price Slashed To £480

Motorola’s Xoom tablet has seen its price slashed by £20 at the Dixons Group retailers just a few days before its UK launch.

Initially priced at £499.99, the Motorola Xoom is now available for £479.99, making it roughly equivalent to the 32GB Wi-Fi-only iPad 2.

Powered by Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), the 10.1-inch device will come with an Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor, 32 GB of internal storage and Wi-Fi capability. It will also sport a 2-megapixel front-facing camera and a 5-megapixel rear-facing model that captures video in 720pixel HD.

The discounted Xoom tablet is available for pre-order at Dixons, Currys and PC World, with a delivery date set for 9 April.

Tablet war

The UK tablet war looks set to get even more brutal this year, as manufacturers compete neck-and-neck to grab a slice in the crowded market.

Following Apple’s iPad 2 rollout, which saw its stock emptied within 24 hours after launch, Acer plans to release the 7-inch Iconia Tab A100 as well as the 10.1-inch A500 in the UK on 20 April, with an initial price tag of £300 and £450 respectively.

Later in the summer, Sony will also jump aboard the tablet bandwagon with its own tablet PC dubbed ‘S1,’ boasting Android Honeycomb and a cutting-edge design. The company is determined to win the second position in the crowded tablet market before the year’s end, most likely by distinguishing its device from its rivals.

Besides Acer and Sony, Motorola will have to compete against Asus and its Honeycomb Eee Pad Transformer as well as Hewlett-Packard, which is rumoured to roll out its webOS-based TouchPad in June.

Meanwhile, research firm IDC said the computing industry will ship nearly 45 million tablets throughout 2011, with over 25 percent of the total units being purchased by enterprises.