The Toshiba Thrive: A Android 3.1 Honeycomb Tablet with a Twist

Dave Altavilla from H Hardware.com is here to give us a quick look at the Toshiba Thrive, a new 10.1-inch Android 3.1 Honeycomb tablet by Toshiba. The Thrive is based on NVIDIA's Dual Core Tegra 2 processor at 1 GHz and has a gig of onboard system memory as well as 8 GB, 16 GB, and 32 GB storage options. The 8 GB model retails at $429.99, the 16 GB at $479.99, and the 32 GB at $579.95.

The Thrive is a stock Android 3.1 experience for all intents and purposes, with Toshiba including a few additional utilities like App Place, Start Place, and Book Place. These are basically web-driven apps that take you to Toshiba's bookstore. The app place also includes a news and information headline news sort of app, as well as let's take a look at the start place. The app place is an online-driven web-based utility for apps, news, and ebooks.

The Thrive comes with a user-friendly interface and a built-in file manager that supports the use of a mouse and Android 3.1 Honeycomb. With the file manager function on this tablet and the ability to hook up a mouse, you get some real valuable functionality that you just don't get on tablets currently. The Thrive also comes pre-installed with Need for Speed Shift, which is a demo.

The Thrive has enough multimedia and gaming horsepower for just about any tablet requirement you could throw at it. With NVIDIA's dual-core Tegra 2 processor under the hood and the Nvidia Graphics engine on board, this tablet can play games and handle multimedia content with ease. This relatively impressive game engine actually looks pretty good and certainly fluid on the Thrive.

One of the standout features of the Thrive is its user serviceable battery. The back cover comes off, which allows you to easily replace or upgrade the battery yourself. This is a great feature for anyone who wants to be able to customize their tablet or extend its lifespan.

The Thrive also comes with full-size ports, including USB and HDMI, making it easy to connect external devices like keyboards, mice, and monitors. The back cover of the tablet can also be removed, allowing you to easily upgrade the battery or replace other components.

In terms of display quality, the Thrive's adaptive display technology allows it to maintain visibility in bright outdoor lighting conditions. While it may not match the brightness of Samsung's Super AMOLED plus display technology, it still manages to produce a clear and visible image even in relatively overcast days.

The Toshiba Thrive is an Android tablet that offers a great balance of performance, functionality, and price. With its user serviceable battery, full-size ports, and multimedia and gaming horsepower, this tablet is definitely one of the better values in the market.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi everybody Dave altavilla for H hardware.com here with a quick look at the Toshiba Thrive this is a new 10.1 in Android 3.1 honeycomb tablet by Toshiba it's based on nvidia's Dual Core tgra 2 processor at 1 GHz and has a gig of onboard system memory as well as 8 gig 16 gig and 32 gig storage options uh the 8 gig model retailing at $429.99 16 at $479.99 and the 32 gig model at $579.95 it is a stock Android 3.1 experience for all intents and purposes with the Thrive as you can see uh Toshiba does include a few additional um utilities things like the app place the start place and the book place and just quick looking around here it's basically web driven apps if you will that uh take you to toshiba's bookstore and we'll go back and take a look at the start place this is sort of a news and information uh headline news sort of app and also let's take a look at the app place and again online driven web uh based um utilities here for apps news and ebooks let's take take a look around the Slate a little bit more show you all the ports and features of the device so again the Thrive is a 10.1in Android Honeycomb based slate has a native resolution on its panel of 1280 by 800 and has good brightness contrast and color reproduction as you can see also excellent viewing angles it's built with toshiba's adaptive display technology which basically is an ambient light sensor that detects ambient light and adjust screen brightness and uh color saturation based on your lighting conditions and so and they actually claim that the display is visible in the brightest of outdoor um areas so we'll have to take a look at that in a little bit but um for sure the display is nice would say perhaps not quite as vibrant with the Deep blacks that we've seen in Samsung's 10.1in Galaxy Tab uh with the super Amed plus display technology in that tablet but again uh a very nice display regardless uh for the Thrive here and we are now browsing over an 80211 n on board 80211 n wireless connection here and as you can see very responsive we've got pinch and zoom capabilities again very responsive there as well and um again that Nvidia tgra 2 processor under the hood providing a very um crisp responsive experience looking around we've got uh a 2 megapixel front-facing camera here web camera with a microphone you've got the back cover lock right there you can actually pull the cover off we show you that in a minute bottom of the tablet you've got a pair of speaker ports one on each end as well as the SN port and on this Edge you've got the power adapter as well as a headphone jack and then underneath this little concealed door this is where things get interesting for the Thrive this is what uh sort of makes this tablet stand out from the crowd full-size ports here folks you've got a full-size usb2 Port as well as a full-size HDMI port and a mini USB port underneath that uh little cover here so real nice again if you'll tolerate the added thickness of the display in return you get these fullsize ports full sizee SD card reader flash card reader right there so real nice uh screen rotation lock button volume rocker and power button pretty straightforward and uh up top on the front of the Slate here is a power indicator light uh drive indicator light and a Wi-Fi network activity in indicator light now finally here we've got our Thrive sitting on top a protective microfiber cloth here so we could show you this if you recall we mentioned that the back was removable there's actually a switch up top here that you can uh put in the unlock position and actually pry off the back cover of the Thrive we actually did that it's fairly easy to do you just got to get your fingernail along the top edge here and pull back and the entire back skin comes off the Thrive as you can see and really nice you can actually get access to a number of key components here number one you get access to the camos battery the small watch- likee battery right here that you could unplug perhaps might come in handy resetting the Thrive uh but also there's two unlock and lock buttons up top here and you can actually remove the main uh lithium ion battery for the tablet which is actually a first this is a user serviceable rechargeable lithium ion battery packed by tashiba so you know if your battery uh goes dead or perhaps you want to get a spare uh you can do that with the Thrive a nice ni option here good access and and a first for us with any 10-in slate okay so we figured we'd take tashiba up on their claim and take a look at this adaptive display technology as theba calls it for the Thrive and we're out here in the back deck and uh we have what I would say is a relatively overcast day going on and um so not the brightest outdoor condition um in the world but uh but definitely an outdoor lighting setting as you can see there's uh quite a bit of glare obviously but um the panel is visible um and we would say the brighter uh it it was out here the the less visible it would be but but not bad you actually can still see the image quite well uh again you know except for that glare but let's take a look at the uh Samsung Galaxy Tab In this case as well and we can ab that for you and here's a look at the Galaxy Tab and as you can see um definitely you know deeper blacks and better contrast on the Galaxy Tab and this lighting condition so again the Thrive perhaps not quite as robust in terms of its display technology as uh Samsung Super AMOLED plus display technology but uh again not bad um taking a look back at the Thrive here um again you can see uh still visible but just not quite as rich and vibrant uh with deep blacks like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and here's a look at a really nice feature of the Toshiba Thrive tablet here's the Toshiba file manager that they built for Android 3.1 and as you can see we've got three main areas we can choose from internal storage the SD card or the USB device we actually have a USB mouse plugged in here and if you can look closely at the screen you'll see our cursor is moving around very fluidly and we're not touching the screen we actually have a mouse pointer on the screen Android 3.1 honeycomb supports the use of a mouse and uh so with the file manager we can go here and click to our SD card again fullsize SD card slot and go ahead and browse to some pictures we have on that SD card and so we'll just pull that up here a nice little seide setting but as you can see with the file manager function with full-size SD card slot on this tablet and the ability to actually hook up a mouse and um you know navigate with a mouse you get some real um valuable functionality with the Toshiba Thrive that you just don't get on tablets currently and here we are playing Need for Speed Shift which comes pre-installed the the demo anyways on the Thrive and uh with nvidia's dual core Tegra 2 processor 1 GHz Tegra 2 under the hood with uh the Nvidia Graphics engine on board certainly the Thrive has enough multimedia and gaming horsepower for just about any tablet requirement you could throw at it and this relatively impressive game engine actually looks pretty good and certainly fluid on the Thrive so we would say all told with its multitude of IO options full-size ports user serviceable battery and a reasonable price uh 16 gig configuration of the Thrive MSRP is 479 again we would say that uh it's actually a pretty good value in Android tablet certainly uh one of the better values in the market if you don't mind a little bit extra weight at 1.6 lb and a little bit extra thickness it's definitely one of the thicker tablets on the market these days but uh with that you get full-size ports and that user serviceable battery and the back cover that comes off so you really can't complain it's actually a well-built tablet with a lot of horsepower and a lot of accessibility options stop by our site for the full review with all the Benchmark details I'm Dave altavilla for H hardware.com thanks for stopping by\n"