Motorola Xoom: The Missing Manual

Chapter 6. Contacts, Chat, and Video Chat

Your Xoom may not include a phone, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a great communications devic—it is. With its big keyboard, it’s great for text chats. With its microphone and speakers, it’s great for voice chats. And with its two cameras and big, beautiful screen, it’s superb for video chats. And it’s also great for keeping track of all of your contacts.

As you’ll see in this chapter, the Xoom is a great way to keep in touch with friends, family, and coworkers.

How You Chat

You use your Xoom to chat in much the same way that you chat on a computer or phone. You type text, speak into a microphone, and possibly use the Xoom’s webcam if you want to go full-bore into video.

You can do all this with Google Talk, built directly into the Xoom. It’s front and center; the app’s icon is right there, waiting for you on your Home page. And Google Talk is integrated so deep into the Xoom that you find it even inside Contacts, and you can launch chat sessions from there. (You’re not locked into using Google Talk, though; this chapter clues you into other chat applications as well.)

Starting Google Talk

To launch Google Talk, tap its button on your Home screen. If you’re not logged in, tap the Sign In button that appears, and then type your login information. Your Google Talk login is the same as for Gmail and all other Google accounts. In fact, when you tap Sign In, your Xoom probably doesn’t ask for login information. Instead, it uses the Xoom’s primary Google ...