According to reports, the initial versions of Motorola Mobility Holdings' upcoming Xoom tablet device will cost nearly $800; thereby making the tablet more expensive than Apple's comparative iPad model which is priced as $729.

Motorola Mobility's CEO Sanjay Jha - who is attending the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain - recently confirmed that the company's 10.1-inch Xoom tablet would sell for an unsubsidized $799 at Verizon Wireless. The Wi-Fi-only version of the tablet will cost almost $600.

Talking to reporters in Barcelona, Jha said that Motorola Mobility - a spun off from Motorola Inc. - wants "people to make a choice based on the capabilities we deliver rather than just price."

About the cost of the Xoom vis-à-vis Apple's $729-priced 32 GB, 3G-equipped iPad model, Jha said: "I have always taken the view that to compete with Apple you need to deliver a high- quality product rather than compete on cost alone."

With the Xoom being the first tablet to run Google's tablet-optimized Android 3.0 'Honeycomb' OS, Jha further added that almost all Motorola products releasing this year will use Google's Android software; indicating that the company is focused more than ever on Google.

In addition, Jha also said that Motorola Mobility was "looking at possibly having its own application store."