Motorola Xoom tablet hits Verizon and Best Buy today

Motorola Xoom tablet finally goes on sale Thursday, after a month of speculation on its price and release date. First revealed at last month's CES convention in Las Vegas, the Xoom will cost between $600 and $800, depending on whether you opt for a 2-year contract with Verizon.

Motorola, of course, faces a market already dominated by Apple, which recently revealed that it sold 7.33 million iPad units during the holiday season alone. Meanwhile, Apple will almost certainly unveil an iPad 2 next week. A rejiggered iPad could reinvigorate interest in the Apple device, and probably steal a good deal of thunder from upstarts such as the Motorola Xoom tablet. And from the Samsung Galaxy Tab. And from the BlackBerry PlayBook.

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Which is not to say the Xoom is small potatoes. It's not. The Xoom will be one of the first to run Android 3.0 Honeycomb, Google's next-generation OS designed specifically for tablets. The Motorola slate will also ship with two cameras – one front-facing and one rear-facing – a 10.1-inch display, and a range of hardware goodies for the gamers among us, including a gyroscope, a magnetometer, and an accelerometer. Flash support will be available, but not a launch.

Is the Xoom worth it to you? Let us know your reasons in the comments below. In the meantime, make sure to sign up for the free weekly Innovation newsletter. The newsletter, which includes all sorts of tech and gadget news – from the latest tablet rumors to reviews and analysis – is emailed out every Wednesday morning.