Motorola Xoom: The Missing Manual

Chapter 2. Getting Online: Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G, and Mobile

Your Xoom is filled with plenty of nifty features, but it really comes to life when you take it online. With it, you’ve got the whole Internet laid out in glorious, full-screen color. Whether you need to search, get maps and directions, watch YouTube videos, or do pretty much anything else on the Internet, your Honeycomb tablet lets you do it.

But first, of course, you need to get connected. You’ll get the rundown on how to do that in this chapter, along with learning about one of your Xoom’s more amazing capabilities—acting as a Wi-Fi hotspot for computers and other devices and letting a computer get on the Internet (via a USB connection).

How the Xoom Gets Online

Your Xoom is built to hop onto the Internet via its Wi-Fi connection, and if you’ve got one with a 3G connection (or 4G connection) built in, you can get onto the network that way as well. 4G stands for fourth generation—the fourth generation of cellphone standards. The difference between 4G and 3G networks is simple—4G is much faster. The term 4G is sometimes used interchangeably with a standard called LTE (Long Term Evolution), such as Verizon’s LTE network. In fact, an LTE network doesn’t quite meet all of the geek specs of a 4G network, but the differences are too small ...