Sprint Motorola XOOM Spotted: 4G WiMAX Inside?

Motorola's XOOM has been caught in the wild apparently wearing Sprint branding, more indication that the carrier expects to launch its own version of the Android 3.0 Honeycomb slate. Leaked by SprintUsers' r0fl, the slate has no 3G or 4G branding; however, rumors yesterday suggested that Sprint was readying both a WiMAX-equipped XOOM and a WiMAX version of the Motorola ATRIX 4G.

Both devices were tipped for announcement as early as next month. Verizon is yet to confirm timescales for the LTE upgrade promised to XOOM early-adopters, and if Sprint is fast enough with its version it could potentially beat its CDMA rival to having the first 4G XOOM on the market.

As the XOOM teardown showed, Motorola purposefully made the tablet's modem easy to access, something which will likely speed its availability on different carriers. Whether competition between Sprint and Verizon will push the subsidized pricing of the slate down – and make it more competitive with the iPad 2 – remains to be seen.

[via Android Community]