Review: Toshiba Thrive tablet
Toshiba has finally released its first Android tablet for the US market. Slow but steady wins the race. This 10-inch Toshiba Thrive tablet has a removable battery, full-sized USB and HDMI ports and an SD expansion slot. Thrive ships with a host of pre-installed practical apps, and runs the new, improved Honeycomb Android 3.1. Even the price is favourable, at $429 it beats many competitors. It’s a WiFi only tablet until Toshiba releases the 3G version this winter.
At .62 inches thick, the Toshiba Thrive is chunkier than many other tablets (almost twice the thickness of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1) and weighing 1.66 pounds is heavier than the first generation iPad. At 10.97 x 6.97 inches Thrive is as narrow as other 10-inchers such as the Galaxy Tab 10.1, but longer.
The design though is somewhat clumsy, with its cheap-looking rubberized finish on the back. At least it won’t slip out of your (stretched) fingers. Toshiba offers customisation through swappable, vibrant covers – choose from Blue Moon, Raspberry Fusion, Lavender Bliss, Silvery Sky, or Green Apple for an extra $20.
The Thrive has an impressive combination of ports, starting with a lock switch for locking down the removable lid. On the right side we find a power button, volume dial and a lever to lock screen orientation, plus a full-sized SDXC slot at the far end. Another side wields headphone and mic sockets and a covered door concealing full-sized USB and HDMI ports, together with a mini-USB socket. The last side offers a covered 30-pin docking connector, situated between a pair of small speakers.
The 10.1 inch screen manages 1280×800 pixels, like the Galaxy Tab 10.1, though the Thrive’s viewing angles are a little narrow.
The small stereo speakers are just about loud enough, but no more, though at least Toshiba has included software to enhance audio quality. The quality of the speakers themselves is adequate for a small device, but faintly tinny.
The battery lasted only six and a half hours of medium-to-high use. At low usage the battery performs a little better, and keeps charge well when idle.
Luckily the 23Wh battery is removable – replacements can be had for $80 – so longer journeys are possible with the Thrive.
Like many other tablets, Toshiba Thrive runs on NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 SoC 1Ghz processor, and boots in a satisfying 20 seconds. Toshiba Thrive generally responds promptly and precisely to taps, swipes and multi-touch gestures like pinching or zooming.
Toshiba has stuck with the standard Honeycomb UI, but the Thrive runs Android 3.1. New features of the OS include resizable widgets, which make Gmail and calendar apps much more useable, although at the moment some apps cannot be resized until developers get up to speed.
Toshiba has provided a whole load of pre-installed commercial third-party apps, such as Quickoffice (normally $24.99) and Kaspersky Tablet Security ($19.95 for one year). And a few free favourites – Angry Birds and the New York Times are both thrown in. The company has also included its e-reader app, Book Place, as well as Google Books, Google’s reading app.
One surprising weakness of Toshiba Thrive tablet is the lack of Facebook or Twitter clients, something which has been addressed by other tablet OS, notably Windows 7.5. Toshiba’s own app store still looks a bit bare, too.
The standard Android keyboard offers a pleasant typing experience with no hindrance to typing speed, and Thrive comes with Swype installed, for those who prefer it.
The Toshiba Thrive has two main advantages when it comes to file storage and transfer. The first is the full-size USB port and the SD card, the second is the outstanding Toshiba File Manager. The files are helpfully laid out in a grid; tap and hold a file for a list of options, or tap the Select File button at the bottom to select a load of files to work with. We transferred a 1GB pile of photos in just over ten seconds, which for a mobile device is acceptable for the sort of task most people wouldn’t perform more than twice a day.
Unusually for a tablet, both cameras are placed on one of the shorter sides of the tablet, enabling easy photo-taking in portrait mode.
The Thrive’s camera must be classified as substandard – the 5MP rear-facing camera falls short in low light or rapid-motion pictures, but worst of all renders pictures in a slightly bluish tint. Many photos came out grainy, too, so this might not be the best tablet if photography is high on your priority list. Add to this that the portrait-optimized placing of the buttons can hinder landscape photo-taking, and the Toshiba Thrive’s photography credentials start to look shaky. The 2MP front-facing camera fared similarly, though ultimately should be fine for video chat. The 720p video is of course affected by the same ‘bad case of the blues’, and motion can be a bit jittery.
In benchmarks the Thrive matched the Galaxy Tab, hardly surprising considering the very similar spec.
The 8GB Toshiba Thrive tablet sells for $429, 16GB costs $479, or for those of you hungry for massive storage on the go there’s a 32GB high-ender for $579. Given the SD card expansion capabilities and the ease of USB use, the 8GB version looks very competitively priced against such tabs as the Galaxy Tab 10.1, even if it isn’t quite as good-looking or lightweight.
Enjoy this Toshiba Thrive review video courtesy of engadget:
Enjoy these Toshiba Thrive pictures:
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