I have the phone and was thinking of buying the tablet.

As they are both Android, would I be able to transfer the photos etc from my phone onto the tablet or would it be hard to as they're different makes?

Thanks!

I don't the facts that they are both Android and are different makes will either help or hinder you in transferring stuff TBH?

You can either transfer stuff via another computer or by bluetooth or some form of cloud storage, or possibly even connecting them directly via USB lead.
(although the last would depend on whether the Xoom sees your phone as an external drive)

As emptybox says you could use Bluetooth to transfer your files or use any of the numerous apps on the market. Wifi File Explorer which I use all the time allows you to use your browser to download the files.

As for the Xoom recognising your SGS II as an external drive, it should do, but you will need a USB OTG cable to set the Xoom to USB host mode. Don't bother paying over the odds for the official cable, get 1 from ebay for a couple of £

There are 'some' apps that benefit from both tablet and phone both being Android (obviously many of the Google apps do) but it isnt vital.

Not sure about the xoom/SGSii but not all phones allow USB host (particularly with Android->Android relationship strangely) .... BUT .... there are plenty of other ways to transfer data between the two.

I have both (both are brilliant ), yes photos between the two are fine, I actually now use Dropbox, whenever I take a photo on the phone it automatically adds it to Dropbox which is also on my Xoom

Or just use your micro sd cards......