Motorola leader Sanjay Jha on Wednesday confirmed to Reuters prices for the Xoom. The Android 3.0 slate will cost $800 with Verizon contract-free, while a Wi-Fi version will still cost $600.
Jha justified the prices by noting that mounting a challenge to the iPad demanded high prices. “Competing with Apple you have to deliver premium products,” he said.
He still wouldn’t provide a ship date beyond the end of February but did hint that Motorola was contemplating the option of its own app store as a complement to Android Market. Despite loyalty to Android, he said he “hope[d] as hell” there would be three to four operating systems so there wouldn’t be an OS monopoly.
While the Xoom’s 32GB of storage makes the $600 Wi-Fi model on par with a same-capacity iPad, the $800 price of the 3G version is $70 higher than what Apple offers under similar terms.
