Motorola Xoom To Get Verizon 4G LTE Upgrade Soon, With Less Hassle?
When we gave you our take on the Motorola Xoom Android Honeycomb-powered tablet, we shared our disappointment that Verizon 4G LTE network service was currently not enabled on the device but would be coming in the months ahead. The process, as described by Verizon, consisted of sending the unit back to Verizon for an LTE upgrade and customers would receive the tablet back within a six day turn-around. However as some folks reported this seemed like overkill, since dropping in a 4G LTE radio card, and replacing the existing dummy card, would take a technician familiar with the process no more than 10 minutes to complete the task. Why not just have Verizon retail store technicians handle the upgrades? It was suggested that even tech-savvy end users (HH readers for example) could perform the procedure themselves.
Recent signals we're getting suggest that perhaps Xoom owners may actually end up having an easier upgrade path, with a quicker turn-around time possibly and sooner, rather than later. We've heard from industry sources in the know that Verizon was contacting business partners saying the LTE upgrade would be coming very soon and that a Verizon tech would also be able to come out to perform the upgrades on site.
Xoom's 4G LTE Upgrade: Easily done. Just pull the back cover.
Image Credit: iFixit.com
Recent signals we're getting suggest that perhaps Xoom owners may actually end up having an easier upgrade path, with a quicker turn-around time possibly and sooner, rather than later. We've heard from industry sources in the know that Verizon was contacting business partners saying the LTE upgrade would be coming very soon and that a Verizon tech would also be able to come out to perform the upgrades on site.
Xoom's 4G LTE Upgrade: Easily done. Just pull the back cover.
Image Credit: iFixit.com
This outreach by Verizon suggests the upgrade availability date could actually happen sooner than the "summer" date previously reported. Also, the offering of on-site upgrade for certain early business customers suggests Verizon feels comfortable servicing tablets remotely, versus at a factory location. Could it be that Xoom owners can just slide their new tablet over to a nearby Verizon store in the coming weeks for a little 4G LTE injection? We hope so and recent indicators are pointing that way as well.
