The new Motorola XOOM tablet is now available on pre-order at £699.99. The Xoom is expected to arrive on the UK market in spring 2011.

The tablet boasts a dual core processor, 1GB of RAM and 32GB storage. It has a 10” HD ready touch screen, a 5-meg camera with flash, a front-facing 2-meg. There is also It has 3G as standard and an HDMI port. It also uses the new Android 3.0 Honeycomb, an iteration of Google's operating system that has been customised for tablet experience.

At a price higher than all but the top variant of the Apple iPad this tablet has a challenge ahead of it and it certainly doesn’t look like a viable option for schools at this time. 2011 however has a huge number of tablet launches planned from all the major players and many less well known brands. Once to watch for particularly is the Blackberry PlayBook due for launch later this year (we hope).