The Swiss Army Knife of Tablets: Toshiba's Thrive

hothardware.com ^ | Wednesday, July 27, 2011 | Dave Altavilla

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Android Honeycomb based tablets are beginning to feel like they're a dime a dozen. 10.1-inch slates are coming out of the woodwork from a bunch of major players, and for all intents and purposes, they're built upon very similar base platforms with NVIDIA's Tegra 2 processor powering them. Capacitive touch displays, integrated 802.11 WiFi, 8 - 32GB of ROM storage, 1GB of RAM, accelerometers, gyroscopes, front and rear facing cameras and Android 3.1 -- you know the drill.

Fortunately, beyond the cookie-cutter reference platform, some manufacturers are building tablets that stand out from the crowd.  Asus stepped out early with an innovative approach to expanding the tablet experience and Samsung decided to take on the iPad 2's thin and sleek design approach but augmented that with what is arguably (or perhaps not depending on your tastes) the best looking tablet display currently on the market.

Toshiba historically has been known for building notebooks that perhaps aren't as thin and sleek as other machines but rather have a build quality and feature set that is best-of-class.  On the tablet front, Toshiba's first effort with an Android-based 10-inch slate looks to be cut from the same cloth.  The not-so svelte Toshiba Thrive showed up here recently for testing and a run-through with our usual fine-toothed comb of analysis.  How does it measure up in the buzzing hive of Honeycomb goodness already in the market?  You're about to find out.

[kevkrom]

I've seen touch screens in kiosks, hospitals, and professional office buildings for more than a decade, all running a flavor of Windows or 'nix. Having a touchscreen, or running without a keyboard and mouse, is nothing new

True, but the newer generation of devices have a few things going for them:

1) The touch screens are not intended to simulate mouse input, but to completely change interaction with the device (multi-touch and gestures, specifically)

2) The idea of making a tablet that's just like a PC, only portable, is gone. Tablets are more focused devices now -- the ones that try to be general-purpose computers are the ones that are failing.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

And I don’t buy his stuff either!

[Mr. Jazzy]

Bill Gates, while he may be a liberal/progressive idiot, to the best of my knowledge did not sell out the safety and security of one of our nations BEST deterrents to a first strike by an enemy.

[Defiant]

I love the webOS operating system, it is by far the best out there. However, the tablet offering is woefully short of apps, and the hardware is competitive with the iPad, not as strong as the iPad2. HP has a long way to go to get even people who want to like webOS devices to be able to justify purchasing one over an Apple.

[so_real]

Multi-touch and gestures are, I believe, available in Windows, Mac, and Ubuntu. My impression is that a tablet is nothing more than an ultra-portable PC. The iPad, for instance, has options for a docking station, external keyboard, and full size monitor. What is that if not a PC wannabe? The tablets that tried, and failed, to be a general purpose computer lacked hardware up to the task. The hardware is catching up, though. With only 1GB of RAM and a 1GHz single core processor, the Toshiba Thrive won't be a general purpose PC either. But when you double those specs ... Windows XP would run quite well on it. And with a full suite of stable Windows apps already available with everything needed to communicate, consume, and actually perform work -- why waste the effort furthering these "panel" operating systems and trying to port the world's apps to them?

[ken21]

i’m waiting for the one to buy.

is this it?

[BuffaloJack]

> I still associate Toshiba with what they illegally did in the late 80’s to help make Russian submarines quieter .

Same here. At my last job, they wanted to have me use a Toshiba laptop. I told them I’d rather find another job. I got in an arguement with my boss about it, and I work somewhere else now.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Don't know for what you might want...mobility is not it's stron feature...or processor power either....

If you want connections then it could be....

Might want to wait on the next wave with new processors...nvidia, Qualcom have new stuff soon to appear.

And Apple of course.

And Marvell and TI are busy!

This stuff is getting a bit insane!

HP is using Qualcomm...so they might be on the fast path!

[ken21]

thanks. good points.

i have an i phone and 2 ‘puters, one large desktop and a portable.

it makes sense to wait until the “must have” comes out.

[stuartcr]

I like that...extravagance rules

[discostu]

I don’t know if extravagance rules. But when even the poor in your country have stuff that the middle class of the rest of the world (including Western Europe) would consider extravagant you’re probably doing something right.

[stuartcr]

I agree. This is the best country in the world.

[stuartcr]

I agree. This is the best country in the world.