Thoshiba's Thrive tablets were widely panned for their short battery life and chunky, cheap-feeling design, the outfit decided to put those models out to pasture and start anew. So bid goodbye to the Thrives and say hello to the Excite 7.7, 10 and 13. These are the same tablets that we first saw in prototype form at CES (and again at Mobile World Congress), complete with their slim builds and textured aluminum backs. All three will pack NVIDIA's Tegra 3 SoC, and ship with unskinned Ice Cream Sandwich. The 7.7, in particular, sports the same AMOLED display inside the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7, while the 13-incher steps up to 1600 x 900 resolution (as opposed to 1280 x 800). For those of you who think you'll miss the 10-inch Thrive's full-sized SD slot, that feature carries over to the Excite 10 and 13.
Thoshiba has intoduced a 13-inch ARM-powered tablet. Not a 13-inch slate with Ultrabook specs; just a really big Android tablet. Well, Toshiba's banking on you using this indoors, particularly in the kitchen where you might want to glance at recipes or the weather forecast. Company reps emphasized about the tablet's tough Gorilla Glass display, though they seem oblivious to the fact that you could do all of the above with a $400 iPad 2, or any other mid-range tablet. It's an important thing to consider, given that the Excite 13 will set you back a princely $650 for 32GB.
In addition, the Excite 13 will be available with 64GB of storage for $750. The Excite 7.7 is also coming June 10th, at which point it'll cost $500 for the 16GB and $580 for the 32GB configuration. The 10-inch will beat them both to market, arriving May 6th starting at $500 for 16GB of built-in storage. There will also be a 32GB version for $530 and a 64GB number for $650.
Toshiba's AT200 tablet is the thinnest tablet in the world (for now). But how does its performance stack up against its rivals?
This is a 10.1-inch Android tablet that lays claim to being the world's thinnest. The AT200 has a good screen, and the tablet is super-thin and pleasingly light. The build quality leaves something to be desired, with the sharp edge-seam a particular worry. This tablet is worlds ahead of Toshiba's last-year's effort, but still has a long way to go before being a significant challenger to the iPad - super-light weight notwithstanding.
Review
When Apple released its latest iPad, critics were surprised to find the weight had gone up compared to last year's iPad 2 - after all, isn't progress represented by new products which are lighter and thinner than earlier models? Apple ignored this rule because its high-definition display needed a much bigger battery to power it.
So this must be the best timing for Toshiba and its new feather-light model. This is certainly a remarkably light tablet, weighing in at 558g, at par with some 7-inch-screened models. And the thinness of this, the thinnest tablet available, means it feels comfortable in the hand, even for long periods of reading.But the first snag you hit when you touch the AT200 - and it's a big one - is the edge. The curved corners are good, and contribute to the highly appealing look of the machine. It's one of the classiest-looking tablets around.
However, holding it reveals that the silvered edge stands very slightly proud of the display, which means there's an annoying sharp edge. You're not going to cut yourself, but it feels consistently uncomfortable in the hand. Even adjusting your grip is enough to scrape your palm.
In terms of connectivity, this is a nifty machine. There's a mini HDMI slot, micro-USB socket, earphone socket and even a slot for a microSD card which is neatly sculpted to make it easy to use. These are all on the left edge, when you hold the AT200 in landscape orientation, which it seems to suit.
The top edge is socket-free, the bottom has a quite frankly huge slot for the power cable. The right edge has three switches and buttons on it. You'll find a well-placed power button towards the top, a volume rocker and a screen orientation lock. You can lock this using an onscreen button in the settings menu, as well.
When the lock is on there's no onscreen representation of this: you have to peep round at the edge to see if the tell-tale red bar indicates that it's on. Also, there's no hardware button to launch the camera or snap a photo. The 5MP camera isn't bad, and the user interface on Android tablets is pretty good - more manual settings are possible than on the iPad, but it's straightforward enough to use easily. It seemed pretty good at focusing and snapping quickly, too.
The AT200 has a decent screen - of course it lacks the super high resolution of the Retina Display on the new iPad with its 264 pixels per inch. But at 149ppi, it beats the iPad 2, for instance. The tablet performs reasonably well, but it never seems especially speedy. It's not slow as such, it's just there are faster rivals around. And some of those rivals use Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest Android software, while this comes with Honeycomb - not the most current.
Battery life isn't that great on the AT200 either - which is a trade-off for having such a catwalk-thin model on your hands. You may feel it's a compromise worth making for all the weight you've saved, and at six or more hours you can get through much of a day. Moreover after a few days of not using it, you will find it's completely discharged.
Conclusion
The AT200 has lots going for it: if you want a tablet that looks stylish and is light enough for extended use, even when holding it with one hand, it's worth considering. But the other specs beyond its weight and slimness don't make it stand out. In fact it's the build quality that really stands out, and not in a good way. If Toshiba upgrades the software to the latest version - which shouldn't be hard as it's pretty much rocking vanilla Android - it will become a more attractive option.
Specifications
Camera: 5MP with LED Flash
Video: 720p@30fps
Display: TFT capacitive LCD touchscreen, 1,280 x 800 pixels,
Toshiba, after receiving an outstanding success from its Thrive tablet, now has revealed the world’s thinnest tablet ever called the Excite X10 Android tablet. That’s right, the Galaxy Tab
10.1 is no longer king (well, they remain king until the Excite X10 launches).
The Excite X10 features a beautiful 10.1-inch IPS display with Corning’s Gorilla Glass and 1280 x 800 resolution, a fast dual-core TI OMAP OMAP 4430 processor clocked at 1.2GHz, 1GB of RAM, 16 or 32GB of internal storage, front and rear-facing cameras at 2 and 5-megapixels, respectively, and more.
The remarkable thing in this tablet is that it’s a slim than further tablets, so it has just around 7.7mm thickness, but that doesn’t prevent it having revolutionary features. The Excite X10 tablets also features microSD, micro USB, and HDMI mini connection ports, unlike the Toshiba Thrive, which features full USB, HDMI, and SD ports.
The Excite X10 tablet will have a 10.1-inch touch display with 1280 x 800 pixels screen resolution, which is developed using IPS (In-Plane Switching) technology.
The tablet is motivated by a 1.2GHz dual core chip and has side cameras, 5-MP rear shooter and 2-MP front shooter for video chatting.
It will be made obtainable in a different storage capacities because it carries both 16GB and 32GB pre-installed storage memory and it runs on Android 3.2 Honeycomb OS.
The company has also revealed that they will update its Excite X10 to the latest ICS 4.0 operating system soon after the tablet will be released in international markets.
The tablet will be available at some point during this quarter and will sell for $520 for the 16GB model and $520 for the 32GB model.
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