But even with the iPad 2 looming, will have to go head to head with the original iPad. If you can't hold on a bit longer without a tablet, here's how the Xoom and iPad stack up against each other.

Impressive Specs

The Motorola Xoom packs some serious specs, making the original iPad look a bit behind the times. It runs on a Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor clocked at 1GHz (iPad has single-core 1GHz), has 1GB of RAM (vs. the iPad's 256MB) and rocks not one, but two, cameras: a 2-megapixel front-facing camera for video calling and a 5-megapixel one at the back, while the iPad has no cameras at all. The Xoom's screen is also slightly larger (10.1-inch vs. 9.7-inch), and the resolution is slightly higher too (1280 by 800 pixels on the Xoom, 1024 by 768 pixels on the iPad). Both tablets are similar in size and weight.

Apple's Key Advantages

Besides the spec advantages the Xoom has over the current iPad, Apple still has some (very important) tricks up its sleeve: pricing and applications. A 32GB Xoom will set you back $800 without a contract, compared to the equivalent 3G iPad at $729. If you sign a two-year data contract with Verizon, you can get the Xoom for $600, but that does mean an extra contract--unlike the iPad's 100 percent pay-as-you-go structure on AT&T. In the future a WiFi-only Xoom would be able to better compete on the $499 starting price of the iPad, but so far, Apple has the essential pricing advantage.