Evaluating the Toshiba Thrive Tablet

The Quick Review of Toshiba Thrive Tablet

The Toshiba Thrive Tablet was released in January 2011, and since then has been known as a favorite among Android users. Here’s a quick review of what the Thrive has to offer.

Toshiba Thrive

Design and Build Quality 

The good points

  • Overall, it has an average build quality
  • Rear cover is rippable and the texture is nice

A2

 

The points to improve:

  • The Toshiba Thrive weighs 1.7 pounds and has a thickness of 15 mm. This makes the device one of the biggest tablets in the market. Compared to other tablets: Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 only has 8.6 mm. It is also heavier by 0.4 pounds than the Galaxy Tab 10.1.
  • Because of this size and weight, the tablet is not very comfortable to hold
  • The cover of the removable battery is seemingly plastic and does not look sturdy, either
  • There can be a flex when you hold the tablet on the edges
  • Observed some display light leakage as you open the port cover

Toshiba Thrive Display

The good points:

  • The Toshiba Thrive has a 10.1 inch IPS LCD display
  • Its display looks similar to other tablets like the Galaxy 10.1 in terms of color reproduction. The tablet gives you bright colors that’s nice to look at
  • Viewing angles are great
  • There is no brightness distortion. This is attributed to the thick glass on the screen of the tablet.

Camera

The good points:

  • The tablet has a 5mp rear camera and a 2mp front camera
  • Quality of photos is comparable to the photos produced by the Asus Transformer

Performance

The good points:

  • The tablet runs on a Tegra 2 dual-core processor
  • It has 1 gigabyte of RAM
  • Toshiba Thrive performs similarly to other tablets using Tegra 2.
  • Booting up the device is fast
  • It provides an overall smooth performance – the home screen can be swiped without experiencing lags, you can install apps quickly, the browser is fast and easy to use
  • The tablet would be great for gaming. It can let you play intensive games without stuttering, such as Dungeon Defenders.

Battery Life

The good points:

  • It is the first tablet that comes with a removable battery.

The points to improve:

  • It is difficult to remove the rear cover of the removable battery, and it is even more difficult to return it.
  • Toshiba Thrive has a battery capacity of 2,030 mAh. This is much, much lower than the 6,800 mAh battery capacity of the Galaxy Tab 10.1. As such, the tablet has a poor battery life.

A3

Software

The good points:

  • The device runs on Android 3.1 Honeycomb
  • The internal storage of the device differs depending on the variant that you have. The Thrive is available in 8gb, 16gb, and 32gb variants.
  • Some new software includes a Toshiba app store, some Toshiba card games, Kaspersky, and LogMeIn.
  • Toshiba Thrive also has the keyboard called Swype
  • It has a built in file manager that makes you transfer files easier. It will let you browse your files in the internal storage, SD card, and USB storage without so much hassle.

Other features

The good points:

  • The Toshiba Thrive has a USB 2.0, HDMI-out, and miniUSB port. It also has a full-size SD card slot that has SDXC support.
    • USB 2.0 port allows USB host support for accessories like keyboard, etc. It also lets you access your external storage devices and thumb drives
    • The HDMI-out port lets you mirror the display of your tablet on another device. This is great for watching videos and sharing photos.
    • The miniUSB port lets you easily transfer photos from your camera to your tablet

A4

  • The numerous spaces for the ports are what makes the Toshiba Thrive a remarkable device.
  • The Toshiba Thrive also has a lot of accessories such as cases for the tablet, a media dock, a kickstand folio, and replacements for your rear cover.

A5

A6

The not-so-good points:

  • The accessories available for the Toshiba Thrive do not come free with the package. You have to buy it.
  • It also does not have a keyboard dock

The verdict

The Toshiba Thrive is something that you have to try buying. To sum up the good and the not-so-good points:

The good:

  • The tablet performs well; no annoying lags or anything.
  • It has a lot of ports that makes it very handy and useful for users
  • The idea of a removable battery
  • The file manager of Toshiba is a helpful tool that becomes a good match for the numerous ports of the tablet

The not-so-good:

  • It is not as remarkable as other high-end tablets like the Galaxy Tab 10.1
  • It is heavier than most tablets and also noticeably bigger, so it is not as comfortable to use as other tablets
  • The small battery capacity (about only a third of the capacity of the Galaxy Tab 10.1
  • Battery life is poor – only two days compared to the one week of Samsung’s product
  • The overall design of the device is just average.

The Toshiba Thrive Honeycomb has a lot of ideal features, but most of them are not unique anymore. Thus, it is difficult to separate it from other tablets in the market right now. Toshiba would have more impact in the market if it is successful in creating innovations that the competitors could not immediately copy. It could have been the best tablet on the market if it weren’t for the fact that competition has caught up and made more meaningful advancements to their devices. But as it is right now, the only remaining edge that it has is the presence of the HDMI-out port, the USB 2.0 port, the miniUSB port, and the SD card slot. But if you are not the type who needs to have all those ports, then the Toshiba Thrive would surely not be the first choice.

What do you think of the Toshiba Thrive tablet? Share with us your experiences by commenting on the section below!

 

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