Toshiba thrive vs Acer A500 vs Galaxy Tab 10.1

[SandraC]

We are a multi-android household. We have a Galaxy 7' (son), a Toshiba Thrive (husband, marketed as AT100 because THRIVE is a brand of plant food in Oz) and an Iconia 501 (mine). The Thrive has a full sized SD card slot, which is great for hub as he wants to used it to preview photos and his camera uses SD cards., the Iconia has MicroSD, but as my camera uses compact flash, so I use the USB port and a card reader. The Thrives is WiFi only, but you can always get a pock WiFi (doesn't support the mobile broadband USB dongles we have) whereas the Iconia and Galaxy are both WiFi and 3G. I would have liked to get my hands on the Galaxy 10, but they aren't available, so can't really give you info on it, but if it's like the 7in, it will be a good tablet to have, too.

My advice: toss a coin, best 3 out of 5, or names on slips of paper with random draw.

 

[Douvie]

We are a multi-android household. We have a Galaxy 7' (son), a Toshiba Thrive (husband, marketed as AT100 because THRIVE is a brand of plant food in Oz) and an Iconia 501 (mine). The Thrive has a full sized SD card slot, which is great for hub as he wants to used it to preview photos and his camera uses SD cards., the Iconia has MicroSD, but as my camera uses compact flash, so I use the USB port and a card reader. The Thrives is WiFi only, but you can always get a pock WiFi (doesn't support the mobile broadband USB dongles we have) whereas the Iconia and Galaxy are both WiFi and 3G. I would have liked to get my hands on the Galaxy 10, but they aren't available, so can't really give you info on it, but if it's like the 7in, it will be a good tablet to have, too.

My advice: toss a coin, best 3 out of 5, or names on slips of paper with random draw.

When you got an ICONIA the rest is chicken feed.

 

[Douvie]

Just thought I'd elaborate further, we're an android household too - we it comes to Tablets. we have 3 ICONIA TABLETS. My wife and daughter love theirs.

 

[scubaboyc]

In this day and age of Cloud storage, are thumb drives and sd cards really all that important? Just a thought.

Sent from my DROID2 using Android Tablet Forum

I spend alot of time places with no wifi access and mobile hot spotting is too costly. A tablet is the perfect device for my needs (size & once filled with the swag i desire). The cloud is great, but I just don't like the idea of my "life" being on someone else's hard drive. I keep all the really important stuff backed up on my computer. Everything I need immediate access to/ working on currently, I back up a copy to the cloud. At some point, the cloud & computer overlap and I clean house (all current to the computer). I learned during the blizzard last winter that it's not smart to depend on the cloud when you're without internet for 5 days.

 

[BlockMaker]

I've been back and forth for the last 2 weeks trying to decide between the A500 and the Thrive. Both have pretty much the same features and I like the expandability of the SD slot. This is useful for storing picture, movie & music files that could take up a lot of room of the internal memory. I've played with both at Best Buy and while I have to say that the screen on the Thrive jumps out at me more that could just be somebody playing with the screen controls. I had been leaning toward the Thrive because of the Toshiba name but now I'm looking more at Acer because it's been out longer and most of the issues that I've read about in the forums seems to have been resolved or at least easily fixed.

One of the factors, as with any big purchase, is price and both 16gb cost the same. Then today I open the Best Buy ad from the paper this morning and what do they have? A $50 gift card with the purchase of the A500 and $15 off the Targus case & Zagg shield bundle. Looks like another trip to BB today for a "hands-on" comparison. For some strange reason the sale is only good until Wednesday then a new one starts Thursday. I wonder what's up with that.

 

[energized]

Acer a500 is the greatest. Do not buy a china tablet like the flytouch 3. I bought one and threw it away. It JUNK !!!!!!!!!!
I feel that the acer a500 is the best buy. It has all that you want. You only have to buy the 15g version. You can do every thing with the a500. good luck

 

[frnkws]

I first bought an Archos 101 because I had another Archos product I liked.
They had a problem with USB port failures.
So I purchased the Acer A500 and also did an RMA on my Archos.
I like the A550 much better.
I use my device everyday.
I have a portable 500 gig USB drive with 100 gigs of movies on that works on the A500.
I have freemaker video converter on my computer that converts many formats.
I convert DVDs to android to us on the tablet.
Great for watching movies anywhere.
Very portable for my Costa Rica trips. pura vida

 

[FoFoJoe]

About the Chinese tablets.. they all look like junk to me.. correct me if I'm wrong but arent they made in China and really inexpemsive for a reason? If you buying something you want to last, get it from a legitimate manufacturer. Even if its still made in china, the overall quality would be up. And +1 for like every A500 comment made, but all three are definitely good choices.

Sent from my A500 using Android Tablet Forum

 

[manuel809]

i have the acer A500 and love it.

 

[spexwood]

Hello All
Im trying to decide which tablet to buy. My requirements are option of extra ports (USB,etc),great looking screen angles and longer battery life.I have seen all major tablets in store.
Acer (and xoom) seemed heavier to me,Thrive is nice and feels good while holding but not many reviews,Galaxy Tab got remarkable screen and light but expensive plus no ports just like transformer.
So which one is better? Should i get Thrive or Galaxy?? im down to these two now.please help.
thx

Out of the three choices you have, I only have the a500 and toyed around with the Zoom at Best Buy.
I love my a500 and can do just about everything I used to be able to do with my HP Netbook and things I could never do.

I can view, edit, and create Microsoft Office files (limitations, but easy to do something on the go and then do formatting on the PC later)
I can watch videos
I can read digital comics
I can read ebooks
I can surf the net
I can play games (HD and non-hd)
I can take notes
I can take pictures (HD)
I can record videos (HD)
I can view my photos
I can check and send email
I can use external hdds (fat32 natively, but ntfs using rooted HC 3.1)
I can use USB flash drives
I can use GPS

Of course, if does all depend on your preferences and needs. Acer a500 has ports and may be heavier, but it seems to be pretty sturdy and powerful for what it is. My battery life lasts at least 6-8 hours.
If you are down to the Thrive and Galaxy and are no longer considering the a500... why the heck are you even here!? This IS the Acer a500 thread you know!

Sent from my A500 using Android Tablet Forum

 

[zisun_ahmed]

hi,sorry for hacking into the thread,but can anyone confirm me that the acer a500 has fully functioning file manager like the toshiba thrive? i got this from some other forums that acer's file manager is somewhat crippled,it is mentioned not to be capable of handling ntfs file format and can not show all the files as the thrive can.i also found that the acer can not play 1080p standard profile videos properly,while the thrive supports full hd.please guys i need ur help on these
thanks in advance

 

[frnkws]

hi,sorry for hacking into the thread,but can anyone confirm me that the acer a500 has fully functioning file manager like the toshiba thrive? i got this from some other forums that acer's file manager is somewhat crippled,it is mentioned not to be capable of handling ntfs file format and can not show all the files as the thrive can.i also found that the acer can not play 1080p standard profile videos properly,while the thrive supports full hd.please guys i need ur help on these
thanks in advance

You need to download a file manage, which is no problem. You can try several and keep which one you want. Search the threads.

 

[zisun_ahmed]

thanks for the clarification
i have another question about the acer,some comparison sites state that it has only 5 hours of battery life in continuous loop movie test.is it true? thrive was tested to have 7 hours of battery life from the same test.how the battery life of acer works for u?

 

[SandraC]

I don't know what site reported that but I've just recently had my tablet running almost nonstop from 7am until after 5pm. (Was waiting for family member to go into then out of surgery). That was watching video, surfing the net, playing games, sending updates to family and friends. Maybe I have an exceptional battery but I don't think so.

Sent from my A501 using Android Tablet Forum

 

[Tom T]

The Acer will get considerably longer battery life than 5 hours, my friend has one and I can guarantee that first hand.

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Android Tablet Forum