Toshiba Thrive Review

tuadde

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Dec 12, 2011
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Toshiba finally released its 10″ Android tablet that is named Thrive. First time the gadget saw the light in the last CES, more than six months ago. At that time it even had no name, the company teased the public with its latest product but didn’t tell a lot about it. Now we have all the details revealed, and here is the full review of Toshiba Thrive.

Design

Toshiba Thrive is rather big tablet with 15 mm thickness. It is rather big size, compared with 12.9 thick Motorola Xoom or 8.8 mm Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. It weights 771 grams that is more than the most of modern tablets. It is rather heavy for long use, so it is better to hold it on the knees or some surface. The quality of assembly is average. The back cover is made of durable plastic, however there is a slight play between it and the rest of the body. It is more noticeable when you hold the tablet by the sides. The back cover is textured for stylish look and comfortable positioning in hands. Thanks to this texture the table sits tightly in hands, not slipping out. However Thrive is too bulky for a multimedia tablet, it is not comfortable for long use on the move. The load on hands won’t allow you to hold it more than half an hour by hands.

Display and Camera
Toshiba Thrive features 10.1″ IPS LCD touch screen and two cameras, 5MP back and 2 MP front cameras. The display is similar to Acer Iconia A500 or Asus Eee Pad Transformer in terms of image quality and viewing angles. It is not as good as Super AMOLED Plus screens, but also provides bright colours and good contrast image.

The back 5 MP camera is similar to the one in Asus Eee Pad Transformer, with ability to shoot photos and video in HD format up to 720p. Camera for a tablet is not so important as for smartphone, users do not often use it. Due to the big size and weight, Toshiba Thrive is unsuitable for being used as a digital camera.

Front camera has 2 MP resolution, but it doesn’t differ from 1.3 VGA in terms of quality. It is good for video calls or chatting, however using it for making photos is also not suitable due to low quality of photos.

Software
The device runs on Android 3.1 Honeycomb operating system without any brand shells. So it doesn’t differ significantly from the rest of Honeycomb tablets. As for the software, there is a pack of preinstalled applications in Toshiba Thrive. It includes a few games, an application for access to Toshiba store, Kaspersky Antivirus, LogMeIn ignition for access to remote PC and virtual screen keyboard Swype that allows to type texts not taking the finger off the screen, by one continuous move.

Besides this, Toshiba Thrive features handy file manager with bookmarks, similar to Android’s Astro in functionality. It provides easy switch between internal memory, memory card and USB drives. With its help you can easily copy information between different memory storages, put files in order quickly and easily.

Performance
Toshiba Thrive is as fast in performance as other tablets working on Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor. The operating system works quickly, without significant delays. The working tables change one another smoothly and quickly. New applications require little time for installing. Web browser optimized for Honeycomb is very handy in use, as well as other Google apps. No problems with screen response, all commands work fine.
The time of tablet start up after turning it on is not big. Game performance fully justifies all possible expectations from dual-core Tegra 2, the tablet easily manages with high-quality dynamic games. The combination of Honeycomb and powerful hardware make Toshiba Thrive one of the fastest tablets among today’s market offers.
Communication and Adds-On
The diversity of ports and jacks is a special marketing move of Toshiba that gives Thrive tablet impressive facilities for extending its use. USB 2.0 port, mini USB port, HDMI out, SD memory card slot – all this is present in Thrive.
USB 2.0 allows attaching different peripheral units to the tablet. This can be a USB keyboard, cameras and other USB accessories. The same feature is available from miniUSB port, as the gadget has built-in USB host mode for miniUSB too. Also USB is suitable for attaching various memory drives including flash cards and portative HDD. So the tablet doesn’t require special cables and connectors to use all these add-ons.

MiniUSB port is given for attaching digital cameras, copying photos and videos and other purposes. MiniUSB is a standard connection protocol for the majority of digital cameras instead of microUSB that a lot of tablets usually have. Toshiba Thrive connects to cameras without any adaptors.
HDMI port is used for displaying the image from tablet screen on some external display, like TV panel. You can view photos and videos recorded by tablet cameras, watch movies and enjoy games on bigger screens.
Battery
A tablet with removable battery is rarely met among today’s models. This is not a must-have feature, like in mobile phones, but sometimes it is rather useful. Having a few batteries, you can always change the discharged battery to the full one, if there is no ability to charge the tablet from the outlet.
Toshiba Thrive is able to work from one charge for 2 days of heavy use. This is little worse than in Galaxy Tab 10.1, but it is also an impressive result, taking into account that Toshiba Thrive has smaller capacity of 2030 mAh, while Galaxy has 6800 mAh.
General Impressions
If you decided to buy Toshiba Thrive, you will definitely be satisfied with the choice. It works perfectly and didn’t show any bugs during practical tests. As for the battery, some experts regard such solution less successful than in Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. It would be better to have built-in battery of the same capacity that would provide enough lifetime from one charge even in a few years, when the battery will lose a part of its capacity. The diversity of ports and connectors is very useful for tablet, making it universal, all-purpose gadget that easily interacts with numerous devices.
 
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