Privacy alert! Motorola Mobility admitted that some refurbished Motorola Xoom tablets were shipped still containing the previous owners’ data because they failed to wipe the slate clean.

It was reported that in the period of Otober-December 2011, some 6,200 Motorola Xooms were sold at Woot, the online retailer, and out of the total Xooms sold, about 100 of them were sold still having the previous owners’ data.

Motorola is offering a two-year membership to Experian’s ProtectMyID Alert for previous Xoom owners who bought their tablets between March and October 2011 and returned it. The service will hopefully prevent identity theft.

Motorola also wants the incompletely unrefurbished Xooms back.  They are calling out to all those who purchased the Xoom tablet from Woot between October to December 2011. If they are in possession of said tablets or think they are or they just want to be sure, Motorola is asking the Xoom owners to contact them either at motorola.com/xoomreturn or call 1-800-734-5870 and select option 1.

“Motorola sincerely regrets and apologizes for any inconvenience this situation has caused the affected customers,” the company said in a statement. “Motorola is committed to rigorous data protection practices in order to protect its customers, and will continue to take the necessary steps to achieve this objective.”

Lesson learned, if you’re unsatisfied with your device or you just want to get a new one, before returning your gadgets make sure you do a fatory reset to wipe the slate clean.  If your device has a memory card, erase all content or reformat it to remove saved date.  If your device offers encryption, encrypt it just to be sure and change your passwords often to lessen the possibility of having your accounts hacked.

More iPad Users Satisfied

On an interesting note, nothing like this happens with iPad owners as far as we know, and the reason behind this might be because iPad users are happier with their devices, hardly feeling the need to return them.

According to a recent poll by ChangeWave comparing Apple’s iPad and Amazon’s Kindle Fire, 74% of iPad users were satisfied with their device while only 54% of Kindle Fire users were happy with tablet, and only 49% user of other brands were happy with their tablets.  In short, other tablets have the higher possibility of getting returned compared to iPads and Kindle Fires.

In dissecting the poll, the reasons why Kindle Fire users aren’t happy with their tablets are: the lack of external volume control as the top peeve at 27%, followed by not having a camera at 21%, short battery life at 15%, lack of 3G/4G capability at 12%, few apps available also at 12%, screen size at 10%, the lack of microphone at 10% and the less-than-strategic location of the power button also at 10%.

iPad 3 Soon?

According to some reports, the iPad 3 will be launched in March.  An LTE version will be released in the US while the 3G version will be launched in other countries.  The iPad 3 is said to feature Long-Term Evolution, a quad-core CPU, and a new high-definition screen.