Android 3.1 on the Motorola Xoom: hands-on





That  Android 3.1  update that Google announced during I/O is slowly rolling  out to 3G  Xoom owners as we speak. How'd we know such a thing? Why, it  just landed  on our in-house Xoom, of course! Most of the changes to  Honeycomb are  happening under the hood -- better HTML5 support, faster  performance,  and USB host functionality for connecting peripherals like  game  controllers and mice -- but there are some improvements  that  will be a lot more obvious to the user. Perhaps our favorite is  the  addition of resizable widgets. For the moment only the email and  Gmail  inbox, calendar and bookmarks widgets can be stretched or shrunk,  but  we're sure others will follow. We're particularly appreciative of  the  expandable calendar widget, which always felt a tad cramped. The  task  switcher also received a much requested upgrade and now lets you  scroll  through your last 18 launched apps, instead of just the five  most  recent. Lastly, the Android Market now offers movie rentals,  alongside  books and apps, which range in price from $1.99 to $4.99 for  24 hours of  playback. There isn't a ton of revolutionary stuff going on  here, but  it's certainly a welcome and worthwhile update. Check out  the video  after the break to see Android 3.1 in action.




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