Xoom Mount: Ram Mount Review.

AdobePhil

So, I picked up a 4G xoom for the purpose of running escort live on it. (It won't work until it's updated to Ice Cream Sandwich, but that's another issue). I still utilize it heavily to stream music from google music through my head unit via bluetooth. it's a great tool especially if you have a bluetooth ODB2 Dongle.

I've seen a few members mod their car to install tablets in the cubby hole, but I wasn't a fan of how it looked, so I decided to go for an alternate method. I have no space on my windshield due to the mounted Radar Detector and my Phone mount so I needed something else.

This is what I found:



Motorola XOOM Mounts

So I ordered one for the Z.

The assembly and the installation was extremely easy. All it does is bolt to the front passenger seat bolt. The hardest part for me wasn't recommended by the company, but I wanted to run my XOOM's Car Adapter through the plastic covering so I didn't have wires all over the place. It's a tight fit. Took me about 20 mins.

The result was a good looking mount that keeps my xoom out of the way with a power supply readily available.



There was an issue however... the mount would shake like a turrets victim dancing in an earth quake.

Fortunately I was able to mitigate this by wedging my DC Power Splitter between the passenger seat and the center console. You just have to bend the goose neck to where it rises between the seat and the console, and then wedge the power splitter (or whatever object you can find that's about this size) between the console and goose neck arm.

The power splitter worked great for me, as I'm able to use the buttons on Escort's Smart cord to report police on the social network. But whatever you use, should you decide to get this mount, it is necessary to do this in order to prevent the shaking.

I've had it on for about 2 months now and I'm pretty happy with it. Shaking is virtually non existent... and it's so convenient having a xoom mounted in the Z!

The only drawback is that you can't move the passenger seat. you can recline it, but you can't move it forwards or backwards. If that's not a big deal to you, I'd recommend the ram mount if you're looking for a good way to mount a tablet.