Android Sunday Quickies: XOOM Pricing And Availability, Galaxy S Froyo Begins to Roll Out, More Fascinate Bugs

Motorola XOOM Release Date, Pricing Information Leaked

Just as all the iPad 2 rumors are heating up, more specs for Motorola’s new Xoom flagship Android 3.0 tablet have been spreading around the Web. According to a placeholder Best Buy product page, we are looking at a $700 price tag, unsubsidized, for the 3G/ WiFi version, which is just a tad more than the $629 3G iPad. The Xoom definitely has some things that the iPad 1 doesn’t, including much more RAM (1GB vs 256MB), dual cameras, a dual-core processor, and the fanciest new version of Android.

The launch for the XOOM is set for Feb. 17, so it also looks like it will get a leg up on the iPad 2, which will still be this tablet’s main competition. What will Apple add to the iPad 2 to compete with tablets like this? Your guess is as good as mine, but one thing’s for sure: if they don’t catch up quickly, Android tablets could catch up to the iPad faster than people would think. For more on the XOOM, check out its introduction video from Motorola on YouTube:

Galaxy S Froyo updates start…But when will they finish?

The scene surrounding Froyo updates for Samsung’s series of Galaxy S devices (Fascinate, Vibrant, Captivate and EPIC 4G) has been interesting to say the least. Notoriously behind their game on software updates, Samsung has been in damage control mode after a series of rumors were circulating that either they weren’t planning on releasing Froyo on these devices so they could sell more next-gen devices, or that they were asking carriers for a per-device fee for the updates. Samsung has said that neither were true, and over the last week they have put the updates where their mouth is, so to speak, as the first carrier has started updating their Galaxy S devices.

T-Mobile’s Vibrant is first on board with an official Froyo update, and the reason for the delay given was a “quality control and timing issue.” The update will not come over the air, as most people are used to receiving Android updates, but instead requires you connect your Vibrant to a Windows PC and use some special software to push the update to your phone over USB. Sorry, Mac users, but it looks like you’re going to have to use some Boot Camp action or a friend’s Windows machine to get this update on your phone. If you want to upgrade, check out T-Mobile’s official instructions. Enjoy Froyo!

Now that one device is getting upgraded, the heat is on for Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint to provide the rest of the family with their own updates. Let’s hope that happens sooner rather than later.

Fascinate E911 Bug

Finally, a quick warning to any Fascinate users who have recently gotten the DL09 OTA update (it should have been pushed to your phone in the last couple weeks). It seems this update has more bugs than it should, since after we found out about the USB mounting bug last week, another, potentially more serious bug has surfaced this week. If you’re using a lockscreen pattern to unlock your device, the emergency button at the bottom of that screen to dial 911 will no longer function.

This doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to dial 911 at all from your phone–if you use the pattern to unlock it and then dial 911 normally it will still work–but in the case of someone else with an emergency using your phone and not knowing the unlock pattern, 911 dialing will not function. When you click the emergency button the phone will not launch the dialer app, instead it will just do nothing. Perhaps it might be time to take off your patten unlock until this has been fixed, you never know what situation you might find yourself in.