Toshiba recently joined the tablet wars with the release of the Toshiba Thrive, but just after a couple of months of bragging about the advantages of the Thrive having a rugged design, a user-replaceable battery and full-sized ports, it looks like the company has some new tricks up its sleeves. Rumors surfaced about Toshiba’s plan to announce a 10.1-inch tablet with a slimmer profile than the Thrive’s at this years IFA in Berlin.
Leaked images of the yet-to-be-named slate show it packing a slim profile that could give the iPad a serious run for its money. The company also did away with the full-sized USB ports and instead endowed its new baby with microHDMI and microUSB ports. Gone is the rugged profile of the Thrive and in its place is an elegant looking slate that boasts of a brushed aluminum finish.
We will reserve judgment for now and will give you updates as soon as we get near the new Toshiba tablet but while waiting for that, let us refresh our memories with what the Toshiba Thrive is all about by going through its specs sheet.
The Thrive measures 272 x 175 x 15 mm and at this dimensions, it is clear that the device is not out to win the race for the tablet that has the sexiest form factor. It weighs in at 771 grams and at this weight, the Thrive is already considered obese. The heft and bulk of the Thrive though is forgivable given the fact that it boasts of full-sized HDMI and full-sized USB ports and a user-replaceable power pack.
The bulk and heft though is compensated by the components under the hood of the Toshiba Thrive Tablet. These components are very impressive and just radiate raw power if you ask me. For starters, the Thrive packs a Tegra 2 T20 chipset with a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU running at 1GHz sitting atop the chipset. Right next to it, in true SoC architecture is the tablet’s dedicated ULP GeForce GPU that covers all matters related to graphics.
The processor of the device on the other hand is paired with a full gigabyte of RAM for some butter-smooth and snappy performance. Also, the device will be available in three versions in terms of storage space – 8GB, 16GB and 32GB. This can further be expanded with the use of the tablet’s dedicated media card slot that can support SD cards of up to 32GB.
In terms of its displpay, the Thrive packs a 10.1-inch IPS (In-Plane Switching) LCD capacitive touchscreen with an 800 x 1280 resolution and 16M colors. Like the competition, the Thrive supports multi-touch input and has an integrated accelerometer for added functionality.
Shooters-wise, the Thrive packs a dual-camera configuration with a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus at its rear panel and a 2-megapixel shooter round its front. The rear-shooter also has a video mode that makes the tablet double as a camcorder for recording video clips.
With those specs in mind, there is no doubt that the Toshiba Thrive is a very capable slate. However, with rumors circulating about the upcoming tablet from Toshiba, the decision on which tablet to bring home may get a little more complicated. Learn more about the current Toshiba tablets in the Toshiba Thrive Review.
