Motorola: WiFi-only Xoom tablet to cost $600

It seems that all is not lost for Motorola’s slick new Xoom Android tablet, which we previously said would suffer because of its $800 retail price. Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha revealed today that the company will offer a WiFi-only Xoom for around $600, Reuters reports.

That makes the Xoom $100 more expensive than the 16 gigabyte WiFi-only iPad, but since it comes with 32 gigabytes of storage, it’s the same price as Apple’s 32GB WiFi-only iPad. To consumers it may look like the iPad is cheaper, but the Xoom is effectively comparable.

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The Xoom also offers more features than Apple’s current iPad, including front and rear cameras and a higher resolution screen. At the Consumer Electronics Show last month, we also saw a demo of the Xoom running Google’s tablet-friendly Android 3.0, which I personally thought blew the iPad’s iOS out of the water. Of course, the iPad 2 will be announced soon, which could put Apple back on equal footing.

Jha also reiterated that there will be a $799 Xoom on Verizon’s 3G network, which can be upgraded to support its 4G LTE network in a few months. We reported previously that Best Buy will offer the Xoom on February 24. Jha said the $799 price is unsubsidized, which makes me wonder why Best Buy will require customers to sign up for Verizon subscriptions to get the Xoom, as we reported earlier. Normally, a wireless carrier would offer a device at a discounted subsidized price so it can rope in new subscribers.

Jha didn’t comment on when the WiFi Xoom would be available, but I suspect it won’t be too long after the 3G Xoom lands at the end of the month.