The much-hyped Motorola Xoom tablet has become available for preorders at Best Buy, with a news entry on the retailer’s site showing that the tablet costs $799 for a 3G-capable model which will be upgradeable to 4G.

The Xoom, which is being deemed a potential challenger to the popular Apple iPad, features a dual-core Nvidia processor, a 1,280x800 resolution display, dual cameras, an accelerometer, gyroscope and HDMI out.

And, going by the preorders at Best Buy, the tablet has a 32GB flash drive and 1GB of system memory. Furthermore, one of the most highly anticipated features of the Xoom is the 3.0 ‘Honeycomb’ version of the Google Android 3.0 OS. The new Android version has been optimized for tablets and effectively taps into Nvidia's dual-core Tegra processor so as to deliver a “PC-like performance” as well as the multitasking capability.

In comparison to the Motorola Xoom, the present iPad 3G version - which is priced at $729 for a 32GB model - has a single-core Apple A4 chip, and a 1,024x768 display. Moreover, the iPad also currently lacks cameras and is also not upgradeable to 4G.

However, with the iPad 2 likely to hit the market in the coming months, the specifications of the second-generation Apple tablet will apparently be upgraded to include a dual-core processor, much better graphics silicon, and two cameras, among a horde of other new features.