Motorola Xoom an impressive tablet, but no iPad

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Motorola's Xoom is the best non-iPad tablet so far. But it helps illustrate just how far ahead of its rivals Apple remains.

Before I get into that, let me say that there's a lot to like about the

A neat new feature in the Android marketplace allows Xoom users to buy and update apps through a computer Web browser and send them over the air to the tablet and any other Android device they own. That's a much slicker way of updating your devices with the latest apps than Apple's method, which requires users to physically connect their devices to their computers and sync them to iTunes.

Like the iPad 2, the Xoom includes front- and rear-facing cameras that can be used to take pictures and videos and make video calls. And it has a battery that Motorola says will last up to 10 hours. I didn't precisely test that, but I had no complaints; in my tests, the Xoom endured several days of off-and-on use on a single charge.

Despite all this, the Xoom is still a work in progress.

Unlike the new iPad 2, the Xoom is supposed to be compatible with Verizon's new, high-speed LTE network. But it's not right now. Motorola promises to eventually upgrade the device for free to make it compatible, but even when the upgrade is available, users will have to ship their tablets to Motorola to get it. The company won't yet say how long customers can expect to be without their Xooms during the upgrade.

Another advantage of Android tablets over the iPad is that they're supposed to support Adobe's Flash software. But the Xoom didn't at launch, meaning it was no more able to pull up Flash videos or surf Flash-enabled websites than the iPad. Motorola does promise that it will make Flash available through a free download later this month.

Similarly, unlike the iPad, the Xoom has a slot into which users can insert a microSD card to give it more storage space. But the slot doesn't work right now, and Motorola hasn't said when it will provide users with the software to make it functional.

And there are other issues. There are very few apps that have been designed to work with Honeycomb because iPad.